Alexandra Nilles

Alexandra Nilles is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Western Washington University since Fall 2024. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University's Collective Embodied Intelligence (CEI) Lab from 2021-2024, where she worked under Prof. Kirstin Petersen. Her research focuses on sustainable robotics, distributed AI, and embodied intelligence for environmental applications.

• Education: PhD in Computer Science (2020) from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, advised by Dr. Steven LaValle; BS in Engineering Physics from Colorado School of Mines.

Her work develops minimalist mobile robot systems that leverage embodied intelligence and environmental interactions to reduce resource demands (battery, sensors, communication) while maintaining provable performance guarantees. Applications include under-canopy forestry monitoring, micro-scale medical agents, and carbon-capture auditing.

She has published in venues such as ICRA, IROS, IJRR, and WAFR, often addressing scalability challenges in chaotic or constrained environments. Key methodologies span formalized planning algorithms, human-in-the-loop control interfaces, and inflatable soft robotics for collectives.

• Awards:
  • Cyber-Physical Systems Rising Star (2023)
  • Microsoft Future Leader in Robotics and AI (2023)

Nilles received NSF support for robotic mouse toy development during her PhD and served as interim PI for Cornell's CEI Lab through the NSF Career-Life Balance Program. She actively participates in interdisciplinary workshops connecting math, art, and robotics.