Treeswift

Treeswift was started in 2020 by co-founders Steven Chen, Elizabeth Hunter and Mike Shomin. There are significant technological barriers to enter the market in which Treeswift does business. The challenge is to efficiently deploy remote-sensing technology under-canopy across vast forestland measuring thousands of acres. Accomplishing this requires merging operational experience and expertise with deep technical knowledge of robotics, software, and machine learning. Steven, a Ph.D. candidate in Computer and Information Science at University of Pennsylvania (Penn), saw potential for his robotic research in the forestry industry and natural resource management and started Treeswift to bring robotics technologies to market. Mike, with a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon, has robotics experience in a variety of areas, including full-system development such as prototyping, embedded programming, circuit design, and aerial autonomy. Elizabeth, with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Penn, is an internationally recognized leader in microrobotics technology, specifically methodologies for fabrication, actuation, control, and sensing of biocompatible micrometer-scale to centimeter-scale robots.

Today, Treeswift has succeeded in creating a one-of-a-kind team consisting of technical experts with deep hardware and software expertise as well as forestry and GIS expertise. Treeswift’s team is composed of robotics and software engineers, data scientists, and foresters with years of experience developing and deploying state-of-the-art technologies based on robotics, remote sensing, machine learning, and land survey. Treeswift has established a foothold within the forestry industry for accurate and high quality data, which has enabled Treeswift to rapidly expand and scale its reach in the industry.