PRL Team 2024

Current PhD Students

Name Co-advisor Thesis Started
Ethan Pronovost     2024
Yunchu Zhang Abhishek Gupta   2023
Sidharth Talia     2022
Helen Wang Dieter Fox   2022

Alumni

Alumni Postdocs

Name Period Current Position
Taylor Kessler Faulkner 2022-2024 Lecturer @ University of Washington
Christoforos Mavrogiannis 2019-2023 Assistant Professor @ Michigan
Sanjiban Choudhury 2018-2019 Assistant Professor @ Cornell
Matthew Barnes 2018-2019 Researcher @ Google
Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee 2017-2021 Assistant Professor @ Cornell
Oren Salzman 2016-2019 Assistant Professor @ Technion
Daqing Yi 2016-2018 Researcher @ Google
Henny Admoni 2015-2017 Assistant Professor @ CMU
Aaron Johnson 2015-2016 Assistant Professor @ CMU
Prasanna Velagapudi 2012-2014 CTO @ Agility

Alumni PhD Students

Name Co-advisor Thesis Period Current Position
Amal Nanavati Maya Cakmak Towards In-Home Deployments of Physically Assistive Robots: Insights from Robot-Assisted Feeding for People with Motor Impairments 2019-2025 Researcher @ Zoox
Matthew Schmittle   Off-Road Navigation Under Sensing Uncertainty 2018-2025 Researcher @ Overland AI
Ethan Gordon   Tractably Adaptable Food Manipulation for Robot-Assisted Feeding 2018-2024 Postdoc @ Penn
Liyiming Ke Abhishek Gupta Teach Robot to Use Chopsticks: a Test Bed for Robotic Learning via Fine Manipulation 2017-2024 Researcher @ Physical Intelligence
William Agnew   Human Priors for Reinforcement Learning 2017-2023 Postdoc @ CMU
Sherdil Niyaz   Optimizing the Design of Robot Environments via Interleaved Optimization and White-Box Motion-Planning 2017-2022 Researcher @ Motional
Brian Hou   Robot Motion Planning with Uncertainty and Urgency 2016-2022 Researcher @ Aurora
Samuel Ainsworth   Perspectives on Policy Learning 2016-2022 Researcher @ Cruise
Patrick Lancaster Josh Smith Towards Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation via Electrostatic Braking and Pre-touch Sensing 2014-2022 Postdoc @ Meta
Aditya Vamsikrishna   Efficient Robot Motion Planning in Cluttered Environments 2016-2021 Researcher @ Aurora
Gilwoo Lee   Scalable Bayesian Reinforcement Learning 2015-2020 Founder @ Zordi
Stefanos Nikolaidis   Mathematical Models of Adaptation in Human-Robot Collaboration 2014-2018 Assistant Professor @ USC
Laura Herlant   Algorithms and Implementation and Studies on Eating with a Shared Control Robot Arm 2013-2018 Senior Robotics Research Scientist @ iRobot
Zita Marinho Geoff Gordon Moment-based Algorithms for Structured Prediction 2012-2018 Researcher @ Sacoor Brothers
Shervin Javdani Drew Bagnell Acting under Uncertainty for Information Gathering and Shared Autonomy 2011-2017 Robotics Engineer @ Aurora
Matt Klingensmith Michael Kaess Tracking and Calibrating Robot Arms using SLAM Techniques 2013-2016 Roboticist @ Boston Dynamics
Jennifer King   Robust Rearrangement Planning using Nonprehensile Interaction 2012-2016 Researcher @ Berkshire Grey
Michael Koval Nancy Pollard Robust Manipulation via Contact Sensing 2012-2016 Software Engineer @ Waymo
Christopher Dellin   Completing Manipulation Tasks Efficiently in Complex Environments 2009-2016 Roboticist @ Nuro
Anca Dragan   Legible Robot Motion Planning 2009-2015 Associate Professor @ Berkeley
Mehmet Dogar   A Framework for Manipulation in Cluttered Environments 2008-2013 Associate Professor @ Leeds
Alvaro Collet Martial Hebert Lifelong Robotic Object Perception 2009-2012 Engineering Lead @ Facebook
Dmitry Berenson James Kuffner Constrained Manipulation Planning 2006-2011 Associate Professor @ Michigan

Alumni MS Students

Name Co-advisor Thesis Period Current Position
Atharva Pradhan   Insights from Developing a Robotic Bimanual Manipulation System 2023-2025 Engineer @ Third Wave Automation
Jeongseok Lee   A Linear-Time Variational Integrator for Multibody Systems 2016-2018 Researcher @ Meta
Pengju Jin   Highly Robust Pose Estimation from Single Frame RGBD 2017-2017 Researcher @ Aurora
Shushman Choudhury   Anytime Geometric Motion Planning on Large Dense Roadmaps 2015-2017 Ph.D. @ Stanford
Rosario Scalise Stephanie Rosenthal Human-Centered Design of Robot Explanations 2015-2017 Ph.D. @ UW
Shen Li Stephanie Rosenthal Automatically Evaluating and Generating Clear Robot Explanations 2015-2017 Ph.D. @ MIT
Evan Shapiro   A Hierarchical Framework for Configuration Space Task Planning 2013-2015 CEO @ Mina Foundation
Aaron Walsman   ROCK: Robust Object Constellation for Kinematic Pose 2013-2015 Ph.D. @ UW
Elizabeth Cha Jodi Forlizzi Robots in the Home: Qualitative and Quantitative Insights into Kitchen Organization 2012-2014 Researcher @ Waymo
Kyle Strabala   Learning the Communication of Intent Prior to Physical Collaboration 2010-2012 Scientist @ Near Earth Autonomy
Martin Herrmann Dr.-Inf. Uwe Hanebeck @ Universitat Karlsruhe Active scene and object reconstruction for robotic manipulation from vision and laser 2009-2009 TU Braunschweig
Garratt Gallagher Drew Bagnell GATMO: A Generalized Approach to Tracking Movable Objects 2007-2009 Google Robotics