Future Leaders in Robotics and AI: Celebrating Diversity and Innovation Seminar Series

The Future Leaders in Robotics and AI: Celebrating Diversity and Innovation Seminar Series is part of the University of Maryland Robotics and Diversity Initiative. This is a nationwide online seminar series for PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, or early-career professionals, especially underrepresented minorities and women. The seminar series will highlight the latest research and innovation in the field of robotics and AI. It is also intended to provide exposure and mentorship opportunities to the speakers, build a network of innovators across the country, and support the speakers’ career planning.

The seminars are held on select Fridays during Spring semesters. There are two speakers per seminar. Each speaker gives a 20-minute research presentation followed by a Q&A segment. Speakers are also given the opportunity to engage in discussion with faculty.

Fall 2025 Schedule Coming Soon!

Spring 2025 Flyer

Friday, February 28, 2025, 2 pm - 3 pm ET

Speaker 1: Yoonchang Sung, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas at Austin, "Extending Current Capabilities of Task and Motion Planning"
Speaker 2: Elena-Sorina Lupu, PhD Student, California Institute of Technology, "Perception-Driven Autonomy and Learning Control for Space Robotics"

Friday, March 28, 2025, 2 pm - 3 pm ET

Speaker 1: Reuth Mirsky, Assistant Professor, Tufts University, " Bad Robot, Good Robot - Rethinking the Agency of Our Artificial Teammates"
Recording
Speaker 2: Yewei Huang, PhD Student, Stevens Institute of Technology, " Data Efficient Localization and Mapping for Distributed Multi-Robot Teams in the Field"
Recording

Friday, April 11, 2025, 2 pm - 3 pm ET

Speaker 1: Oier Mees, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California Berkeley, "Embodied Multimodal Intelligence with Foundation Models"
Recording
Speaker 2: Heiko Kabutz, PhD Student, University of Colorado Boulder, "Increasing agility of insect robots through body shape morphing"
Recording

Friday, April 18, 2025, 2 pm - 3 pm ET

Speaker 1: Sheng Cheng, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, "DiffTune: Auto-Tuning through Auto-Differentiation"
Recording
Speaker 2: Laura Zheng, PhD Student, University of Maryland, "Who is driving the car? Modeling driver personas for accurate behavior simulation in autonomous driving"
Recording

Friday, April 25, 2025, 2 pm - 3 pm ET

Speaker 1: Himani Sinhmar, Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton University, "Provably Scalable and Decentralized Control Design for Minimalist Robot Swarms"
Recording
Speaker 2: Ran (Thomas) Tian, PhD Student, University of California Berkeley, "Towards Safe and Aligned Embodied AI in the Era of Robotics Foundation Models"
Recording

Friday, May 9, 2025, 2 pm - 3 pm ET

Speaker 1: Homanga Bharadhwaj, PhD Student, Carnegie Mellon University, "Watch, Predict, Act: Robot Learning Meets Web Videos"
Recording
Speaker 2: Shivani Kamtikar, PhD Student, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, "Learning-Based Manipulation and Control of Hybrid Robotic Arms"

Spring 2024 Flyer

Friday, February 16, 2024, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Merihan Alhafnawi, Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton University, "Expressive robot swarms & multi-human-swarm interaction for social applications"
Recording
Speaker 2: Jana Pavlasek, PhD Candidate, University of Michigan, "Think graphical, act local: Distributed inference for multi-robot coordination"
Recording

Friday, March 1, 2024, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Krishna Murthy Jatavallabhula, Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Structured world models for robotics"
Recording
Speaker 2: Benjamin Riviere, PhD Candidate, California Institute of Technology, "What do smart robots dream of? Search-based decision-making in games, dynamical systems, and partially-observable environments"
Recording

Friday, March 8, 2024, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Chahat Deep Singh, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Maryland, "Minimal perception: Enabling autonomy in palm-sized robots"
Recording
Speaker 2: Faith Johnson, PhD Candidate, Rutgers University, "Towards socially aware visual navigation with hierarchical learning"
Recording

Friday, March 15, 2024, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Anushri Dixit, Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton University, "Robot safety & generalization in the era of foundation models"
Recording
Speaker 2: Oluwami (Wami) Dosunmu-Ogunbi, PhD Candidate, University of Michigan, "Stepping into the future: Unveiling a novel stair climbing controller"
Recording

Friday, April 5, 2024, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Elena Shrestha, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Michigan, "Sense, imagine, act: Multimodal perception & reinforcement learning for UxV guidance & control"
Recording
Speaker 2: Dhruv Shah, PhD Candidate, University of California Berkeley, "The Foundation Model Path to Open-World Robots"
Recording

Friday, April 12, 2024, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Suresh Kumaar Jayaraman, Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University, "Enhancing transparency in human-robot teams: A machine teaching approach to communicate robot decision-making to diverse human teammates"
Recording
Speaker 2: Ruchen (Puck) Wen, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Maryland Baltimore County, "Designing language-capable robots for ethical & socially adaptive human interactions"
Recording

Friday, April 26, 2024, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Catie Cuan, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University, "Choreorobotics: Teaching robots how to dance with humans"
Recording
Speaker 2: Thomas Berrueta, PhD Candidate, Northwestern University, "Towards transparent & reliable embodied reinforcement learning agents"
Recording

Spring 2023 Flyer

Friday, February 24, 2023, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Mengxue Hou, Postdoctoral Fellow, Purdue University, "Assured Abstraction for Robotic Hierarchical Planning" Recording
Speaker 2: Alexandra Nilles, Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University, "Agent-Environment Interactions for Uncertainty Reduction & Communication" Recording

Friday, March 3, 2023, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Alexis Block, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, LA, "HuggieBot: Design & Evaluation of an Interactive Hugging Robot with Visual & Haptic Perception"
Speaker 2: Emily Collins, Research Scientist, Northeastern University, "Building Trustworthy Robotics for Better, Safer Industry" Recording

Friday, March 17, 2023, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Steven Ceron, Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Enabling Robot Swarms Across Length Scales" Recording
Speaker 2: Junyi Geng, Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University, "Interacting with the Environment for Autonomous Aerial Manipulation" Recording

Friday, April 7, 2023, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker 1: Angeline Aguinaldo, PhD student, University of Maryland, "A Category Theoretic Approach to Planning in a Complex World" Recording
Speaker 2: Lidia Al-Zogbi, PhD student, Johns Hopkins University, "Autonomous Ultrasound-Guided Robotics to Support Trauma Patients: From Diagnostics to Hemorrhage Control" Recording

Friday, April 14, 2023, 2 pm - 3 pm EST

Speaker: Rohan Chandra, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas, Austin, "Socially Compliant Multi-Agent Planning and Navigation in Challenging Environments" Recording

How to Participate

The seminars will be held during select Fridays in Spring semesters. There will be two speakers per seminar. Each speaker will prepare a 20-minute research presentation, after which there will be 5 minutes of Q&A. Immediately after the second seminar, the speakers will participate in a discussion with interested faculty. Each seminar speaker will receive a small honorarium.

Please use the nomination form at the top of the page to submit speaker nominations and self-nominations for the 2025-2026 Future Leaders in Robotics and AI Seminar Series.

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