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About

Tara Estlin is a leading researcher in robotic autonomy and space exploration robotics at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose work has fundamentally shaped how autonomous systems operate on planetary surfaces. She is best known as a principal architect of CLARAty (Coupled Layer Architecture for Robotic Autonomy), a groundbreaking software framework that revolutionized the modularity and reusability of robotic software across heterogeneous platforms. Introduced in 2000 and refined through a series of highly influential publications — collectively amassing nearly 600 citations — CLARAty established a new paradigm for integrating autonomy with low-level robot control, addressing longstanding challenges in interoperability and software reuse that the robotics community continues to build upon today. Estlin's contributions extend directly into deep-space missions. She played a significant role in developing the next-generation engineering camera system aboard NASA's Perseverance rover and advancing its autonomous navigation capabilities. A 2023 paper documenting Perseverance's AutoNav system — already garnering 106 citations — demonstrated that autonomous driving accounted for 88% of the rover's travel across Mars, a testament to the real-world impact of her decades of foundational research. Her career elegantly bridges theoretical architecture development and transformative planetary exploration.