Dan Flippo

Being a Kansas native growing up near Douglass, I am accustomed to the agricultural life. My father worked for the post office in Wichita while running our small farm, which gave me an outstanding background to grow up in.

I graduated with a undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kansas State University in 1994 then went on to work for Cessna aircraft.

While at Cessna I got my Masters degree from Wichita State University with an emphasis in robotics. When we left for Norman Oklahoma to pursue a doctorate, my dream was to work at Kansas State University, my wife Angie and I had a 2 year son named Zeke.

We lived in Norman for about 5 years and had another son named Judah. In 2009 I graduated with a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma, again with an emphasis in robotics, and stayed another few semesters to teach courses.

John Deere in Waterloo IA offered me a job programming tractors in 2011, so we packed up and moved to Iowa, where it is very cold. I learned a lot from John Deere and the good people that work there. In 2013 an opening in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering department opened up, we knew that was a really good fit for me and it got us back to Kansas, and to the wonderful city of Manhattan KS.

Currently I am part of the Machinery option at BAE and my area of research is automation, specifically small autonomous vehicles in agriculture. Everyday I grow more and more excited and passionate about what I am doing and know that this is the work I am to do, and we know that this is the place we are to be. I firmly believe that another phase change in agriculture is coming, one that allows us to feed the world in a sustainable way. All the work I am doing is to usher this new change in.