UT AUTONOMOUS - Key Persons
Alexander Nettekoven is a Ph.D. student in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include aerial robotics, additive manufacturing, and the data-driven control of these systems. He received his M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018 and his B.S. in mechanical engineering from RWTH Aachen University in 2016. Google Scholar Link
Aryaman is a first-year Master's student pursuing his degree in Aerospace Engineering, with a specialization in Control, Autonomy and Robotics. His research interest includes computer vision, autonomous aerial vehicles and robot learning. Aryaman's hobbies are playing soccer, hiking and travelling.
Cevahir Koprulu received the B.Sc. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2021. As a part of the Systems Laboratory of the mechanical engineering department, he did research on driver models combining on game theory and reinforcement learning. In parallel, he worked at Eatron Technologies, London, UK, as an engineering intern in the advanced driver-assistance systems team for development of trajectory prediction models, and implementation of robot platooning tasks.In 2021, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA, as a graduate student. His research interests include reinforcement learning, control theory, and machine learning, with a special focus on autonomous vehicle technologies.
Christos K. Verginis was born in Athens, Greece, in 1989. He received the Diploma in electrical and computer engineering and M.Sc. degree in Automatic Control Systems and Robotics from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece, in 2013 and 2015, respectively, and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 2020. His Ph.D. thesis was awarded the EECI best Ph.D. thesis award on Control for Complex and Heterogeneous Systems, and was one of the finalists for the EuRobotics George Giralt Ph.D. Award in Robotics, 2020. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin His research interests include nonlinear and adaptive control, hybrid and safety-critical systems, multi-agent systems, data-driven control and reinforcement learning. He has authored more than 30 papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings.
Cyrus Neary is pursuing a PhD in computational science, engineering, and mathematics within The Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to his PhD studies, Cyrus received a BASc degree in engineering physics with a minor in honors mathematics from The University of British Columbia. He is interested in studying how prior knowledge can be incorporated into reinforcement learning (RL) systems, and how such information may be used for the formal verification of said systems, particularly in the context of safety-critical engineering applications. His recent research has focused on compositional RL systems; complex (or multi-agent) systems are decomposed into their constituent components to simplify learning, while theoretical guarantees are developed to assure that compositions of such components satisfy system-level requirements.
{Dhananjay Raju} received a B.Tech. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Amrita University, India, in 2011 and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Chennai Mathematical Institute, India, in 2014. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His research focuses on the use of formal methods, game theory, and logic for the design and verification of autonomous systems.
Yigit Ege Bayiz began his graduate research assistantship in the Autonomous Systems group in Fall 2020. He received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Bilkent University in Turkey, and he is currently working towards a Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. His current research interests are online learning and decision-making in adversarial environments.
Franck Djeumou I'm a fourth-year PhD student who joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in Fall 2018. I received my B.S and M.S degrees in Aerospace Engineering from ISAE-SUPAERO, France, in 2018. I also received a M.S degree in Computer Science from \'Ecole polytechnique, France, in 2017. My current research interests include optimization in formal methods, control theory, learning with a priori knowledge, and reinforcement learning with provable guarantees.
Job Titles:
- Fellow at the Oden Institute
Dr. Bakirtzis is a postdoctoral fellow at the Oden Institute working within the Autonomous Systems Group. He is predominantly interested in problems that arise at the intersection of control, formal methods, and learning for safe and secure autonomy.
Po-han entered the PhD program in fall 2021. Prior to that, he was an undergraduate student in Department of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University. His research interests focus on control and learning of network systems. He is co-advised by Dr. Sandeep Chinchali.
Haroon is currently a graduate student in Aerospace Engineering at UT Austin. He earned a B.S. in Mathematics, Economics, and Government from Millersville University of Pennsylvania in 2016. Since 2016, Haroon has been active in Texas politics as a legislative and campaign staffer.
I started my Ph.D. program at the University of Texas in Fall 2021. I am currently researching Symbolic AI. I am also interested in Formal Methods and Complex Systems.
I am Research Engineering/Scientist Associate at The Univeristy of Texas at Austin. I am responsible for our efforts to integrate some of the research our group produces into simulation and hardware. Specifically, I have worked mostly with implementing reactive systems in a surveillance and patrol context. My current work is focused on implementing control algorithms in the Urban Air Mobility space.
I am a fourth-year PhD student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering co-advised by Dr. Topcu and Dr. Tanaka. I earned my B.S. in engineering mechanics and astronautics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2018 and my M.S. in aerospace engineering from UT in 2020. Briefly, my research focuses on how autonomous agents should optimally behave when subject to information constraints and sensor limitations. I am particularly interested in applying these ideas to outer-space applications.
Mustafa O. Karabag is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the Autonomous Systems Group at The University of Texas at Austin. Mustafa received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a minor degree in Economics from Bogazici University. His research focuses on decision-making for autonomous systems in adversarial or information-scarce settings.
Parham Gohari has been a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin since 2018. He majors in decisions, informations, and communications engineering and is affiliated with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. His work focuses on protecting the data privacy of individuals in the cyber domain. Specifically, he is interested in discovering privacy vulnerabilities in autonomous decision making systems, and once he finds a vulnerability, he develops algorithms and theory to propose alternative privacy-preserving solutions. His favorite place to do research is wherever there is a piano.
Rishabh is a M.S. student in Computational Science, Engineering, and Math. His research interests include all things transportation, automobiles, path-planning, and optimization. He previously conducted research with Dr.Stephen Boyles in Civil Engineering Department studying transportation network analysis. His current work is focused on autonomous racing and path-planning in dynamic environments. In his free time, Rishabh enjoys watching Formula 1 and volunteering as a marshal at international motorsport events at Circuit of the Americas.
My name is Ruihan Zhao. I'm a first-year Ph.D. student in the ECE department. My research interest is around Deep Reinforcement Learning, Computer Vision, and Robotics. Before UT, I finished my undergrad and MS at UC Berkeley. During my spare time, I like hiking and playing badminton.
Shenghui Chen I am a PhD student in computer science at The University of Texas at Austin. I graduated from the University of Virginia majoring in computer science and Mathematics. I am interested in autonomous systems, especially the interactions in it. Besides studying science and technology, I love reading, swimming, cooking.
Sophia grew up in Eau Claire Wisconsin before attending the University of Chicago. There, she studied math and physics, graduating in 2021. Her current research interests include autonomous systems.
Steven Carr is currently pursing his Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. He received the B.Eng./B.Sc. in aerospace and mathematics from the University of Sydney in 2014 and the M.Sc in aerospace engineering in 2018. His research interests include the intersection of control and learning in autonomous systems with a focus on aerospace applications.
Dr. Topcu joined the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin as an assistant professor in Fall 2015. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 2008. Before joining The University of Texas, he was with the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a postdoctoral scholar at California Institute of Technology until 2012.
Xiaoming Duan obtained his B.E. degree in Automation from the Beijing Institute of Technology in 2013, his Master's Degree in Control Science and Engineering from Zhejiang University in 2016, and his PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2020. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas, Austin.
Yagiz Savas is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin since 2017. He received his B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Bogazici University in 2017. His research focuses on developing theory and algorithms for autonomous systems to co-exist, cooperate, and compete with other agents by combining tools from controls, formal methods, and information theory.
Yue Yu is a postdoctoral scholar at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Yue obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree from University of Washington in 2020. Yue's research interests include network optimization, optimization-based control, and data-driven control.