Research Team

Undoubtedly interacting with students is the most rewarding part of my research life. I have been fortunate to work with some of the brightest and most dedicated students from all around the world. Most of my management/mentoring/advising has been on topics related to Theory of Robotic Autonomy and its Applications. Below is the list of the students for whom I have served as a manager, mentor, or thesis (co)advisor.

Postdocs

• Dr. Brett Lopez JPL, 2019-Present
  
  • Project: Autonous planning and control for UAV swarm in unknown environments
• Dr. Angel Santamaria Navarro JPL, 2018-2019
  
  • Project: Resilient multi-sensor state-estimation in perceptually-degraded environments
• Dr. Jeffrey Edlund JPL, 2018-Present
  
  • Project: Multi-robot autonomy with unreliable communication links
• Dr. Mohammadreza Radmanesh JPL, 2019-Present
  
  • Project: Mission Autonomy: Mars Helicopter Prototype
• Dr. Matthew Anderson JPL, 2018-2019
  
  • Project: Design and development of next generation hybrid aerial/ground vehicles
• Dr. Benjamin Morrell JPL, 2018-2019
  
  • Project: Large-scale 3D mapping and SLAM for micro-aerial vehicles

PhD Students

• Matteo Palieri (PhD, Santa Clara University), JPL summer Intern, 2019-Present
  
  • Project: IMU-vision-Lidar fusion for large scale mapping of underground envronments
• David Fan (PhD, Georgia Tech), JPL visiting researcher, 2018-Present
  
  • Project: Learning for traversing extreme terrains using hybrid aerial/ground vehicles
• Kamak Ebadi (PhD, Santa Clara University), JPL summer Intern, 2018-Present
  
  • Project: mapping using Mars rover and helicopter
• Jesús Tordesillas Torres (PhD, MIT), JPL Intern, 2019
  
  • Project: Perception-aware global planning for high-speed vehicles
• Abhishek Cauligi (PhD, Stanford), JPL Intern, NASA Mentor for NASA NSTRF fellow, 2018-2019
  
  • Project: Perception-Aware Spacecraft Motion Planning
• Andrew Kramer (PhD, Uni. of Colorado, Boulder), JPL Intern, 2019
  
  • Project: Radar-based odoemtry for drones in dusty envionments
• Mohammadreza Radmanesh (PhD, University of Cincinnati), JPL Intern, 2019
  
  • Project: Large-scale Pose-graph-based SLAM
• Hanseob Lee (PhD, KAIST), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
  
  • Project: Racing Drones
• Sunggoo Jung (PhD, KAIST), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
  
  • Project: Racing Drones
• Christoforos Kanellakis (PhD, LTU), Caltech visiting researcher, 2019
  
  • Project: Small UAV navigation in underground environments
• Tomoki Emmei (PhD, University of Tokyo), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
  
  • Project: Contact-aware motion planning
• Brett Lopez (PhD, MIT), JPL summer Intern, 2018
  
  • Project: Planning and control of hybrid aerial-ground vehicles
• David Chan (PhD, Berkeley), JPL summer Intern, 2018
  
  • Project: Autonomous mapping and spacecraft planning: Application to small body mapping
• SooJean Han (PhD, Caltech), JPL summer Intern, 2018
  
  • Project: Communication-aware coordiantion and mappnig using multi-robot systems
• Jared Strader (PhD, West Virginia University), JPL visiting researcher, 2018
  
  • Project: Predictive perecption for autonomous Mars helicopter and rover coordination
• Eric Heiden (PhD, USC), JPL summer Intern, 2018
  
  • Project: Confidence-rich mapping: A risk-aware representation for robust planning
• Sahand Sabet (PhD, University of Arizona), JPL summer Intern, 2018
  
  • Project: Terramechanics Analysis of hybrid aerial ground vehicles
• Takahiro Sasaki (PhD, Kyoto University), JPL visiting researcher, 2017
  
  • Project: Where to Map? Iterative Copter-Rover Path Planning for Mars Exploration
• Sung Kim (PhD, CMU), JPL summer Intern, 2017
  
  • Project: Robust Autonomy via locally optimal, long horizon POMDPs
• Max Pflueger (PhD, USC), JPL summer Intern, 2017
  • Project: Learn to plan: Leveraging MDP structure in deep learning
• Vincezno Pesce (PhD, Politecnico di Milano), JPL summer-fall Intern, 2017
  
  • Project: Simultaneous Planning, Localization, and Mapping (SPLAM): Application to proximity operation for asteroids
• Zhaoyang Lv (PhD, GeorgiaTech), Qualcomm Research summer Intern, 2016
  
  • Project: Interaction- and Intension-aware planning for self-driving cars: A factor-graph-based approach
• Lucas Janson (PhD, Stanford), Qualcomm innovation fellowship program, 2016
  
  • Project: Parallel Algorithms for Real-Time Robotic Motion Planning under Uncertainty
• Edward Schmerling (PhD, Stanford), Qualcomm innovation fellowship program, 2016
  
  • Project: Parallel Algorithms for Real-Time Robotic Motion Planning under Uncertainty
• Shayegan Omidshafiei (PhD, MIT), Research Mentoring, 2013-2015
  
  • Project: Decentralized multi-agent decision making under motion and sensing uncertainty
• Beipeng Mu (PhD, MIT), Research Mentoring, 2014-2015
  
  • Project: Resource-constrained SLAM and motion planning
• Yu Fan/Steven Chen (PhD, MIT), MIT-Boeing alliance on multi-robot systems, 2014
  
  • Project: Multi-agent decision making under uncertainty: application to flying vehicles
• Saurav Agarwal (PhD, Texas A&M), Research Mentoring, 2013
  
  • Project: Real-time POMDPs with constraints: Application to physical robots
• Mohammad Rafiei (PhD, Texas A&M), Research Mentoring. 2013
  
  • Project: Optimization-based POMDP solvers

Master's Students

• Muhammad Fadhil Ginting (MS, ETH), JPL visiting researcher, 2019-Present
• Edward Terry (MS, CMU), JPL visiting researcher, 2019-Present
• Alatur Nikhilesh (MS, CMU), JPL visiting researcher, 2019-Present
• Nobuhiro Funabiki (MS, The University of Tokyo), JPL visiting researcher, 2019-Present
• Thomas Touma (MS, RMIT University), JPL visiting researcher, 2019-Present
• Xianmei Lei (MS, Cal Poly Pomona), JPL visiting researcher, 2018-Present
• Andrea Tagliabue (MS, ETH), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
• Thomas Lew (MS, ETH), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
• Alexander Huttelander (MS, ETH), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
• Meriem Ben Miled (MS, ETH), JPL visiting researcher, 2018-2019
• Sandro Berchier (MS, ETH), JPL visiting researcher, 2018-2019
• Giulio Autelitano (MS, Università di Pisa), JPL visiting researcher, 2018
• Scott Harper (MS, West Virginia University), JPL visiting researcher, 2018
• Pradyumna Vyshnav (MS, Aalto University), JPL summer Intern, 2017-2018
• Amirhossein Tamjidi (MS, Texas A&M), Qualcomm Research summer Intern, 2016

Undergraduate Students

• Ravi Alex Stephens, JPL Intern, 2019-Present
• Fernando Chavez, JPL Intern, 2017-Present
• Gustavo Correa, JPL Intern, 2019
• Tristan Buick Heywood, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Leon Kim, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Tara Bartlett, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Jairo Contreras, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Micah Elinor Feras, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Gita Temelkova, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Kyle Strickland, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Navid Nassiri, JPL Intern, 2018-2019
• Daniel Tikhomirov, JPL Intern, 2017-2018
• Braddley Carey, JPL Intern, 2017
• Emilie Naples, JPL Intern, 2017
• Jose Mendez, JPL Intern, 2017-2018
• Roberto Mendez, JPL Intern, 2017
• Christopher Maynor, Research Mentoring at MIT, 2014
• Mycal Tucker, Research Mentoring at MIT, 2014
• Jesse Alder, Research Mentoring at MIT, 2014
• Ajinkya Jain, Research Mentoring at Texas A&M, 2013
• Fernando Pastor, Research Mentoring at Texas A&M, 2013
• Karan Bagadiya, Research Mentoring at Texas A&M, 2012-2013
• Ammar M. Abbas, Research Mentoring at Texas A&M, 2012
• Cole Jones, Research Mentoring at Texas A&M, 2010
• Kasra Khosousi, Research Mentoring at KN Toosi, 2008

Visiting Faculty Member

• Dr. Evangelos Theodorou, JPL visiting faculty member, 2019
• Dr. Jong Tai Jang, JPL visiting faculty member, 2018-2019
• Dr. Paul Akangah, JPL visiting faculty member, 2017

Short-term visitors

• Nicholas Ohi (PhD, WVU), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
• Cagri Kilic (PhD, WVU), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
• Leonardo Camargo-Forero (MS, Uni. Politècnica de Catalunya), JPL visiting researcher, 2019
• Jacopo Villa (MS, KTH), JPL visiting researcher, 2018
• Gabrielle Coutrot (PhD, WVU), JPL visiting researcher, 2018
• Sawyer Elliott (PhD, Cornell), JPL visiting researcher, 2017