Luca Carlone is the Boeing Career Development Associate Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and a Principal Investigator at the Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS) . He leads the SPARK Lab , focusing on developing certifiable perception algorithms for autonomous systems. PhD in Mechatronics (Polytechnic University of Turin, 2012) Research spans robotics, computer vision, and optimization Research Interests : Certifiable Perception algorithms for high-integrity systems High-level Perception (geometric, semantic, physical understanding) Efficient Perception methods for resource-constrained robots Scientific Contributions include: 2024 Outstanding Systems Paper Award (RSS) 2023 IEEE Transactions on Robotics King-Sun Fu Award 2021 NSF CAREER Award 2020 AIAA Advising Award 2019 Amazon Research Award Advising : Teaches graduate courses like Visual Navigation for Autonomous Vehicles and Robotics: Science and Systems . Collaborates with institutions including JPL, Caltech, and KAIST through the DARPA SubT Challenge.
Nadia Figueroa is the Shalini and Rajeev Misra Presidential Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds secondary appointments in Computer and Information Science (CIS) and Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE), and is a core faculty member at the GRASP Lab. Prior to Penn, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT’s CSAIL and earned her PhD in Robotics from EPFL under Prof. Aude Billard. Her research focuses on physical and perceptual adaptive intelligence for robots, enabling fluid collaboration with humans in dynamic environments. Key applications include robot learning from demonstration , human-robot co-manipulation , safe navigation in human-centric spaces , and rehabilitation robotics . Her work integrates machine learning control theory artificial intelligence biomechanics psychology with guarantees of stability, safety, and robustness . Recent publications highlight advancements in reactive collision avoidance dynamical system learning intent estimation EEG-driven assistive control origami-based reconfigurable robots across platforms like autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. She has authored a 2022 textbook on dynamical systems for robot control and received the Presidential Assistant Professorship at Penn.
Jia Deng is a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University and directs the Princeton Vision & Learning Lab. His research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and robotics, with an emphasis on advancing 3D vision and synthetic data generation. Ph.D., Princeton University, 2012 B.Eng., Tsinghua University, Computer Science His work spans optical flow, depth estimation, and visual reasoning, leveraging procedural scene generation and robust neural architectures. Recent publications highlight advancements in multi-layer depth estimation, stereo matching, and simulation environments for embodied AI. Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 2018 NSF CAREER Award, 2020 ONR Young Investigator Award, 2020 Multiple Best Paper Awards (ECCV, ICCV, 3DV) Deng leads the Princeton Vision & Learning Lab, which develops foundational tools for computer vision and machine learning. His mentorship extends to advising students and collaborating on interdisciplinary projects.
Michael Kaess is an Associate Professor at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), within the School of Computer Science. He leads the Robot Perception Lab (RPL) and contributes to the Field Robotics Center (FRC) and Computer Vision Group (CV). His research focuses on efficient perception algorithms for mobile robots, particularly in 3D mapping, SLAM, and sensor fusion using vision, LiDAR, inertial, and sonar data. Kaess holds a PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and was a postdoc at MIT's Marine Robotics Lab. Education: Georgia Institute of Technology, PhD in Computer Science (2008) MIT, Postdoctoral Associate (2008–2010) Research Interests: Kaess develops algorithms for robust and efficient inference in robotics, emphasizing factor graphs and linear algebra. His work spans underwater robotics, aerial systems, tactile SLAM, and multi-sensor integration. Key areas include SLAM with planes/lines, imaging sonar reconstruction, and neural field methods for LiDAR-visual fusion. Publications: Over 145 papers, including work on EDPLVO (visual odometry), HoloOcean (underwater simulation), and neural radiance fields with LiDAR. Recent trends focus on robust incremental smoothing, acoustic-optical fusion, and real-time volumetric mapping. Awards: Recognized with the RSS Test of Time Award (2020), Outstanding Associate Editor (2022), and paper awards at ICRA/ICRA. Active in conference organization (IROS/ICRA program committees). Advising & Grants: Supervises 10+ current PhD/MSc students, with past advisees contributing to CoRL/ICRA work. Manages grants in perception, autonomy, and marine robotics. Teaches courses like Robot Localization and Mapping (16-833). Labs/Teams: Directs RPL, collaborates with FRC on field robotics. Develops open-source tools like GTSAM (GNU Toolkit for Smoothing and Mapping).
Andrew Stuart is the Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), joining in 2016. He previously held faculty positions at the University of Warwick (1999–2016), Stanford University (1992–1999), and Bath University (1989–1992). He earned his PhD from the University of Oxford's Computing Laboratory in 1986. Professor Stuart's research focuses on applied and computational mathematics , particularly Bayesian inverse problems , data assimilation for dynamical systems , and stochastic modeling . His work bridges mathematical theory, algorithm development, and applications in geophysics, materials science, and biological systems. His recent publications emphasize operator learning , machine learning for PDEs , and uncertainty quantification . Key areas include ensemble Kalman methods , Gaussian processes , and neural operators for solving and learning from complex systems. Scientific awards include the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship and election to the Royal Society of Great Britain . He advises graduate students in applied mathematics, computational science, and geophysics, including Edoardo Calvello , Hojjat Kaveh , and Florian Wolf .
Shoudong Huang is a Professor at the School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering , University of Technology Sydney, and Deputy Director of the UTS Robotics Institute. His research focuses on mobile robot navigation , SLAM , nonlinear state estimation , and surgical robotics . He has published over 200 papers and is recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Scholars in Robotics (Aminer, 2018). PhD in Automatic Control, Northeastern University (China) Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Hong Kong (1998-2000) Research Fellow, Australian National University (2001-2003) Full-time academic roles at UTS since 2004 His work addresses challenges in robot localization across extreme environments (underwater, underground mining, surgical settings) and develops globally optimal SLAM algorithms with guaranteed performance. He has secured over $4 million AUD in external funding, including ARC Discovery grants and industry partnerships. Recent publications emphasize cross-modal calibration (camera-LiDAR), interval analysis for bounded noise , and template-based deformable surface reconstruction . These span applications in autonomous driving, surgical navigation, and UAV guidance. Chancellor’s Medal for Research Excellence (2020) Supervisor of the Year (2023) Best Paper Award (2016 ICARCV) Huang serves as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Robotics and International Journal of Robotics Research , and has held leadership roles in top robotics conferences like IROS and RSS. His collaborations span MIT, USC, Zhejiang University, and industry partners including PMSW Research Pty Ltd and Multiplex Constructions Pty Ltd.
Prof. Niki Kilbertus is an Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in the Department of Informatics, and Group Leader at Helmholtz AI. His research focuses on causal machine learning, ethical AI systems, and applications in healthcare, climate science, and dynamical systems. He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge (2020) and has held positions at DeepMind, Google, and Amazon during his studies. His research interests include causal discovery, fairness in AI, counterfactual reasoning, and integrating physics-based constraints into neural networks. Key contributions include foundational work on fair machine learning (e.g., avoiding discrimination through causal models) and developing methods for causal inference in complex systems like healthcare and climate modeling. Recent work emphasizes generative models for causal interventions, robust treatment effect estimation, and physically consistent neural differential equations. He leads a large interdisciplinary group with over 20 students and postdocs working on projects funded by Helmholtz Association, ERC, and industry collaborations. Notable awards include the Leopoldina Prize for Young Scientists (2024) and membership in the Junge Akademie. His lab maintains active partnerships with ELLIS, MCML, and the Zuse Institute Berlin.
Heng Huang is the Brendan Iribe Endowed Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park . He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Dartmouth College and holds prior degrees from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research focuses on advancing the foundations and applications of artificial intelligence, particularly in machine learning, data mining, natural language processing, computer vision, and biomedical informatics . His work integrates large-scale optimization, fairness, and robustness in deep learning systems. Heng Huang’s recent publications demonstrate a strong trend in large language models, federated learning, model watermarking, continual learning, and medical image analysis . His work appears consistently in top venues like NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, ICLR, and MICCAI, reflecting a broad impact across theoretical and applied AI. He actively mentors students and postdocs, seeking highly motivated researchers in machine learning and related domains. His work has significant implications for healthcare, privacy, and trustworthy AI.
Xingxing Zuo is an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) in the Robotics Department at MBZUAI. He holds a PhD from Zhejiang University (2021) and a Bachelor’s from UESTC (2016). Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Caltech (2024–2025), a Postdoc at ETH Zurich (2019–2021), and held visiting roles at TU Munich, University of Delaware, and University of Technology Sydney. His research focuses on robotics, 3D computer vision, and embodied AI, with emphasis on robot-human collaboration, state estimation, and sensor fusion. Educations: PhD in Robotics, Zhejiang University (2021, with honors) Bachelor’s in Computer Science, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (2016, with honors) Research Highlights: Develops novel methods for LiDAR-camera-inertial fusion, neural radiance fields, and radar-cameras systems Pioneered techniques like Flying Co-Stereo (long-range aerial mapping) and FMGS (vision-language embedded 3D splatting) Focuses on real-time SLAM, robust depth estimation, and photorealistic scene reconstruction Awards & Recognition: Best Paper Finalist at ICRA 2021 (CodeVIO) Oral Presentation at ICCV 2021 (MBA-VO) Recipient of Google Visiting Faculty Researcher (2023) Grants & Labs: Organized Thermal Infrared in Robotics workshop at ICRA 2025 Leads research on embodied AI and multi-sensor SLAM systems Develops open-source tools like LIC-Fusion and Coco-LIC frameworks
Katerina Fragkiadaki is the JPMorgan Chase Associate Professor of Computer Science in the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University. She works at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Language Understanding, and Robotics. PhD from GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania Postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley (with Jitendra Malik) and Google Research Recipient of NSF CAREER, DARPA Young Investigator, Amazon, Google, Sony, UPMC, and AFOSR awards Organizer of CoRL 2023 Workshop on Generalist Robots ICLR 2024 Program Chair, multiple area chair roles Her research group focuses on developing machines that autonomously improve world models through human-environment interactions, with specific emphasis on: Representation learning and video understanding 2D/3D unified vision-language models Generative simulation and reinforcement learning Real2Sim/Sim2Real robot learning Continual learning and spatial common sense 3D scene reconstruction and dynamics Recent publications highlight advancements in: 3D mesh generation with compositional transformers Unified 2D/3D perception frameworks Physics-aware generative models Diffusion-based robotic manipulation policies Embodied agents with memory prompting Awards include: 2024: DARPA Young Investigator Award 2023: Amazon Faculty Award 2022: Sony Faculty Research Award 2021: UPMC Faculty Research Award 2020: NSF CAREER Award 2019: Google Faculty Award Key collaborations span institutions including UC Berkeley, Google Research, Stanford, MIT, and University of Tsukuba. Her work bridges theoretical innovation with practical applications in: Autonomous robot manipulation 4D world modeling Language-grounded perception Visual dynamics prediction Embodied program synthesis Physics-based simulation engines
Robin Jia is an Assistant Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC) , where he leads the AI, Language, Learning, Generalization, and Robustness (Allegro) Lab . His research focuses on enhancing the reliability and robustness of large language models (LLMs) through mechanistic understanding, benchmarking under distribution shifts, and neurosymbolic integration. Key affiliations include collaborations with the USC Keck School of Medicine and contributions to legal frameworks like the EU's Digital Services Act. Robin's research spans multiple domains, including: Scientific analysis of LLM capabilities in in-context learning , data memorization , and numerical reasoning Advancements in robust NLP systems , emphasizing uncertainty estimation and calibration Development of methods combining LLMs with symbolic solvers for complex reasoning tasks Interdisciplinary applications in medicine and law , such as privacy-preserving synthetic data generation and medical misconception evaluation . His recent publications (2024-2025) address Fourier-based numerical embeddings (NeurIPS), neurosymbolic planning (NAACL), and multimodal benchmarking (COLM), with a strong emphasis on privacy , fairness , and transparency . Scientific awards include the Google Research Scholar Award (2023) , SoCalNLP Symposium Best Paper Awards , and ACL/EMNLP outstanding papers . He advises PhD students like Johnny Wei and Ameya Godbole, and has secured grants from the NSF , USC-Capital One , and USC-Amazon .
Arti Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University. Her research focuses on plant breeding, soybean diseases, genomics, and phenomics, with a strong emphasis on integrating artificial intelligence and high-throughput technologies into agricultural systems. She leads projects involving AI-driven disease identification, precision agriculture, and crop improvement strategies. Her expertise includes developing machine learning models for real-time weed and insect classification (e.g., WeedNet and InsectNet), deploying drones and ground robots for crop phenotyping, and leveraging genomic data to map traits like flowering time and disease resistance in legumes. Singh collaborates on initiatives like the AIIRA Institute for Resilient Agriculture and the BioTrove biodiversity dataset. Singh’s work spans plant stress phenotyping, digital twin technologies for plant sciences, and multi-sensor phenotyping for early disease detection. Her research bridges computational methods with traditional agronomy, aiming to enhance crop resilience and sustainability in the face of environmental challenges. Her recent projects include optimizing robotic navigation for precision agriculture, improving soybean yield estimation via video analysis, and dissecting genetic architectures of traits in mungbean and soybean using GWAS and genomic tools. She actively contributes to conferences and publishes in high-impact journals, advancing both foundational and applied aspects of agricultural science.
Tommi Jaakkola is the Thomas Siebel Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his MSc in theoretical physics from Helsinki University of Technology in 1992 and his PhD from MIT in computational neuroscience in 1997. After completing a postdoctoral position in computational molecular biology as a DOE/Sloan fellow at UCSC, he joined the MIT EECS faculty in 1998. His research advances how machines can learn, predict or control, and do so at scale in an efficient, principled, and interpretable manner. His work in machine learning extends from foundational theory to modern applications, focusing especially on statistical inference and estimation tasks that lie at the heart of complex learning problems. He designs new methods, theory and algorithms to automate the use and generation of semi-structured data such as natural language text, images, molecules, or strategies. Jaakkola applies and develops algorithms to solve multi-faceted recommender, retrieval, or inferential tasks (particularly in biomedical contexts), design and optimize molecules or reactions for drug design, and model strategic, game theoretic interactions. His recent work heavily focuses on diffusion models, protein structure prediction, molecular design, and generative AI, with significant publications in top conferences including ICML, NeurIPS, and ICLR. His scientific contributions span multiple disciplines with significant impact in both theoretical machine learning and practical applications in computational biology and chemistry, including notable work on antibiotic discovery published in Cell. Current advisees: Julia Balla, Bowen Jing, Hannes Stärk, Peter Holderrieth, Chenyu Wang Recent graduates: Gabriele Corso (Boltz PBC), Ezra Erives (DE Shaw), Jason Yim (Xaira) Jaakkola maintains an active research program through MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS), with his office located in the Stata Center (32-G470). His work bridges theoretical machine learning with practical applications, making significant contributions to both the academic field and potential real-world impact in healthcare and drug discovery.
Dr. Daniel J. Hsu is a Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, affiliated with the Foundations of Data Science Center and TRIPODS Institute. His research focuses on algorithmic statistics, machine learning theory, and their applications in public health informatics. He has advised numerous students and postdocs, and his work bridges foundational theory with practical systems like foodborne illness detection via social media analysis. Key roles: Associate Editor (ACM Transactions on Algorithms), Program Chair (ICML 2025, COLT 2019) Research areas: Foundations of Data Science, Machine Learning Theory, Fairness, and High-dimensional Statistics His work on detecting foodborne illnesses using Yelp reviews has been deployed by NYC Health departments. Recent contributions include advancements in transformer architectures, group fairness algorithms, and multi-group learning frameworks. Scientific awards include the Sloan Fellowship and multiple NSF grants. He has pioneered interactive machine teaching methods and developed algorithms for robust parameter estimation in high-dimensional settings.
Sicun Gao is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on practical algorithms for NP-hard search and optimization problems in computational systems, emphasizing combinatorial perspectives in numerical and statistical contexts to achieve reliable autonomy. Research Interests: Automated reasoning, Hamilton-Jacobi reachability, safe reinforcement learning, control barrier functions, and optimization in cyber-physical systems. Teaching: Courses on AI search, optimization, and graduate research seminars. The 15 most recent publications highlight advancements in safe AI control, motion planning, and policy optimization, often integrating neural networks with formal verification. Awards include the IEEE Power & Energy Society Technical Committee Prize Paper Award and the IROS RoboCup Best Paper Award. He advises PhD students working on AI-driven control and robotics, with alumni placed at institutions like Seoul National University, Amazon, and Apple. Grants include NSF Career, Air Force Young Investigator, and DARPA Assured Autonomy funding. His lab develops tools like dReal for automated reasoning in nonlinear theories over the reals.
