Presently, I am a PhD candidate in the Computer Science Department at UMass Amherst working under the supervision of Andy Barto and Roderic Grupen. I have the privilege of working in two superb research labs: the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics (LPR) and the Autonomous Learning Laboratory (ALL). In 2009, I was awarded a NASA GSRP Fellowship from Johnson Space Center for my proposal entitled “Dexterous Mobility and Manipulation.”
I work with the uBot-5, a dynamically balancing whole-body mobile manipulator. Recently, we have demonstrated the robot’s ability to learn a new “knuckle walking” gait on-line in a single trial using reinforcement learning. In future work we hope to further show that, through a process of incremental learning, the uBot can build upon previously learned skills to develop a control action repertoire that supports domain-general mobility and manipulation. I am also interested in developing fast and safe learning algorithms capable of discovering robust, dynamic control policies in mobile manipulators.
For more information about me, please see my CV.
The uBot-5 executing a learned knuckle walking gait.