Esen Yel

Esen Yel is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering (ECSE) department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) since January 2024. She leads the Reliable Intelligent Systems Lab (RISL), focusing on enhancing safety in autonomous systems through planning, uncertainty-aware decision-making, and runtime monitoring. Her work integrates reachability analysis, machine learning, and adaptive control to ensure safe operations in unpredictable environments.

Educational background:

• Ph.D. in Systems Engineering, University of Virginia (2021)
• M.S. and B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bogazici University, Turkey (2016 and 2014)
• Postdoctoral Scholar in Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University (2021–2023), contributing to the Stanford Intelligent Systems Lab (SISL) and Stanford Center for AI Safety

Research interests emphasize safety-critical autonomous systems, including:

• Uncertainty-aware planning and decision-making
• Runtime monitoring and recovery mechanisms
• Machine learning for adaptive control
• Formal verification of neural networks
• Robotics and UAV operations under degraded conditions

Her publications (2017–2024) explore themes like spatiotemporal prediction, reachability analysis, meta-learning for UAVs, and safety validation in perception systems. She directs the RISL lab, advancing interdisciplinary research in reliable AI and robotics.