Hi there! I’m an incoming Assistant Professor, joining Cornell CS in fall 2025. Until then, I’m working as a Research Scientist at The AI Institute.
I want to make robots move like humans. My work integrates machine learning, computer vision, and control theory to imbue robots with surprising agility and robustness for contact-rich tasks like manipulation and locomotion. This approach balances theoretical foundations with practical algorithms to build robots with human-level dexterity and flexibility in the real world.
Prospective students: I'm looking for motivated students to join my lab! Please see this note for more information.
🏅 November 2024: Our paper DROP won Outstanding Paper at the CoRL Workshop on Dexterous Manipulation!
🤖 June 2024: I’ve joined The AI Institute as a research scientist! Excited to work on contact-rich planning and 3D vision for dexterous mobile manipulation.
🎓 May 2024: Happy to announce I’ll be joining Cornell CS as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2025!
* denotes equal contribution.
DROP: Dexterous Reorientation via Online Planning
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024. Under Review.
Outstanding Paper, CoRL Workshop on Dexterous Manipulation
[paper] [project page] [code] [video]
Get a Grip: Multi-Finger Grasp Evaluation at Scale Enables Robust Sim-to-Real Transfer
Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2024.
[paper] [project page] [code] [video]
Generative Modeling of Residuals for Real-Time Risk-Sensitive Safety with Discrete-Time Control Barrier Functions
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024.
[paper] [project page] [video]
Input-to-State Stability in Probability
IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2023.
[paper]
CATNIPS: Collision Avoidance Through Neural Implicit Probabilistic Scenes
IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2023.
[paper] [project page] [code]
FRoGGeR: Fast Robust Grasp Generation via the Min-Weight Metric
IEEE/RSJ Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2023.
[paper] [project page] [code]
Robust Safety under Stochastic Uncertainty with Discrete-Time Control Barrier Functions
Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2023.
[paper]
Multi-Robot Assembly Scheduling for the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope on the Far-Side of the Moon
IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2022.
[paper]
Vision-Only Robot Navigation in a Neural Radiance World
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2021.
[paper] [project page] [code] [video]
CoCo: Online Mixed-Integer Control via Supervised Learning
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2021.
[paper]
TrajectoTree: Trajectory Optimization Meets Tree Search for Planning Multi-contact Dexterous Manipulation
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2021.
[paper]
Decentralized Adaptive Control for Collaborative Manipulation
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2018.
Best Manipulation Paper; Finalist, Best Multi-Robot Systems Paper.
[paper]
Simultaneous Active Parameter Estimation and Control Using Sampling-Based Bayesian Reinforcement Learning
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2017.
[paper]
Previous Courses:
- Course Assistant: AA273: "State Estimation and Filtering for Aerospace Systems," Stanford University, Spring 2018, 2021, 2022.
- Course Assistant: AA277: "Multi-robot Control, Communication, and Sensing," Stanford University, Winter 2018
Working with us:
Prospective PhD students: I'm happy to announce I'm recruiting talented PhD students to join my lab! If you have a strong background in robotics or machine learning, please apply to the Cornell CS PhD program and mention my name in your application.
Cornell undergraduates and masters students: If you are interested in research opportunities, please email me about potential topics you'd be interested in.
FAQ
Should I reach out about my application? Please feel free to email me, but please mention specific reasons you'd be interested in my lab or projects you'd like to explore together. If you've been admitted to Cornell, please don't hesitate to reach out if you'd like to chat.
If I want to work with you, should I apply to the Robotics PhD or directly to CS? I can work with students from both application pools -- feel free to apply to the program that best suits your interests. If you apply to the Robotics PhD, please list CS as your field of study (since I am only a CS field member currently).
Are you recruiting postdocs? I am not planning to recruit postdocs until my lab is somewhat more established. That said, if you are interested in a postdoc, please reach out, I'd be happy to chat more.
Social Justice + Broader Impacts:
I'm excited to explore the potential social impacts of robots and their application in society. I think it's crucial that roboticists anticipate negative social outcomes of our work and advocate for a more equitable and just society. I would be interested and excited to brainstorm projects along these lines (especially with social scientists) -- please reach out if you're interested!
Outside of robotics, my activism focuses mostly on issues around homelessness and housing, particularly in Los Angeles, where I lived until recently.
Hobbies
Outside of research, I spend my time baking, backpacking, climbing, and wrangling my raccoon cat Huxley.
