ROBOT MAN: UC Irvine grad student Brian...

ROBOT MAN: UC Irvine grad student Brian McDonell, above, stars in a series of TV commercials, debuting on the networks this Sunday, featuring his Ph.D. work in robotics. . . . The promotional spots are for Rockwell International, which supports McDonell’s research, along with that of 22 other graduate students at 18 universities. In the movies, McDonell says, “robots always have a great deal of personality. Our robots are just machines.”