Kevin Leahy

Kevin Leahy is an Assistant Professor in the Robotics Engineering Department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Director of the Automata Lab. He holds a PhD (2017) and MS (2016) in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University, along with a BA in Economics (2009). Prior to WPI, he served as a Technical Staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (2017–2023), focusing on multi-agent systems, collision avoidance, and formal methods. He currently chairs the IEEE Technical Committee for Verification of Autonomous Systems.

His research integrates formal methods, AI, and control theory to address challenges in autonomous systems. Key areas include decentralized control for multi-agent teams, safe reinforcement learning, and privacy-preserving control systems. His work emphasizes practical applications in robotics, such as vision-based localization and persistent surveillance for UAVs.

Leahy has led projects on scalable coordination algorithms (ScRATCHeS) and developed tools for temporal logic-based motion planning. His lab, Automata, explores the intersection of formal verification, machine learning, and robotics. He has published extensively in top journals like International Journal of Robotics Research and conferences such as ICRA and CDC.

Before academia, he worked in health economics consulting, analyzing treatment cost-effectiveness. He maintains active roles in the robotics community, including editorial work for Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems and service on the IEEE Verification committee.