Kris Hauser

Kris Hauser is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), with affiliate appointments in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical Science and Engineering. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University and B.A. degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from UC Berkeley. Prior to UIUC, he served as faculty at Indiana University (2009–2014) and Duke University (2014–2019), where he founded the Intelligent Motion Lab. He has also consulted for Waymo since 2019 and is the Director of the Coordinated Sciences Lab Robotics Group at UIUC.

His research focuses on robot planning and control, semi-autonomous systems, and applications in intelligent vehicles, medical robotics, and legged locomotion. Key methodologies include optimization, probabilistic methods, AI, and physics simulation. His work bridges theory with real-world applications, such as robotic surgery, warehouse automation, and autonomous driving.

Prof. Hauser has received notable awards including the NSF CAREER Award, Siebel Scholar Fellowship, and multiple Amazon Research Awards. He actively engages in teaching advanced robotics courses at UIUC and has contributed to open-source robotics frameworks like the Klamp't package. His lab emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, with projects ranging from UV disinfection robots to telepresence avatars.