Our Team
Get to know our team of awesome talents
Heather Knight
Assistant Professor
Dr. Heather Knight’s postdoc at Stanford University explored minimal robots and autonomous car interfaces, PhD in Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in “Expressive Motion for Low Degree of Freedom Robots.” and M.S. / B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developing a Sensate Skin for a Robot Teddy Bear at the MIT Media Lab.
GrADUATE THESES (ARCHIVAL)
Alexandra Bacula, PhD Robotics, “Socially Communicative Multi-Robot Motion and Formation: Algorithm Development and Validation” — Summer 2023
Brett Stoddard, MS Robotics, “Designing and Evaluating a User Interface for Multi-Robot Furniture” — Spring 2022
Yao-Lin Tsai, MS MIME, “One Service Robot’s Exploration of Entertainment Methods During COVID-19” — Summer 2021
Janani Swaminathan, MS Robotics, “Systems and Methods in Multi-Robot Comedy” — Summer 2020
MASTERS PROJECTS
Parthasarathy Reddy, MS Robotics, “Robot vs. Stick: The Impact of Anthropomorphism on the Use of Hand Sanitizer” — Summer 2021
Abhijeet Agnihotri, MS Robotics, “Persuasive ChairBots” — Spring 2019
Alison Shutterly, MS Robotics, “Collision-Based Communication” — Spring 2018
HONORS THESeS (ARCHIVAL)
Joseph Conrow, CS, “Text-to-Pepper-Robot Python Animator” — Spring 2024
Jaden Berger, MIME, “Expressive Motion for Simple Robots” — Spring 2021
Chinmay Wadgaonkar, CS, “Innovative Experimental Methods for Human-Robot Interaction” —Spring 2020
EARLY DAY RESEARCHERS
Alexandra Bacula
Robotics PhD
Alexandra received her BS in Aerospace Engineering in 2018 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include human-robot interaction and creating movement recognizable to human users on non-humanoid platforms.
Brett Stoddard
Robotics MS
Brett received his BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Oregon State University in 2019. His research focuses on effective user interface design with a focus on appropriate level of abstraction for human-in-the-loop control.
Abrar Fallatah
HCI PhD
Abrar received her MS in HCI in 2015 from DePaul University. Her research interests include creating intuitive controllers for multiple service robot using User Centric Design, and inclusivity in Human-Computer Interaction.
Undergrad nsf reu Program
Victoria Chen
Rutgers University
Summer 2021, Robots Feeding Humans
Amy Chan
Wellesley
Summer 2019, Personality through Motion
Madison Miller
Truman State
Summer 2020, Multi-Robot Comedy
Akim Williams
UCSC
Summer 2018, Robot Social Privacy
Jane Akintoye
University of Virginia
Summer 2019, Portable Robot Comedy
Brett Altena
Iowa State
Summer 2018, ChairBot Cafe
Additional Undergrad Researchers
Avi Desai
CS, Winter 2021-Spring 2021, ChairBots UI
Malhar Damle
General Engineering, Winter 2021-Spring 2021, ChairBots UI
Neranjan Kuppuswamy
EECS, Fall 2019-Summer 2020, VR Collisions
Anisa Nasse
EECS, Fall 2018-Spring 2019, ChairBots
Timothy Bui
EECS, Fall 2018-Winter 2019, Robot Comedy
Jason Ho
CS, Winter 2021-Spring 2021, ChairBots UI
Sowmya Jujjuri
EECS, Fall 2019-Spring 2021, Robot Comedy
Jiaji Sun
EECS, Fall 2019-Winter 2020, ResoBot UI
John Enriquez
MIME, Winter 2018-Spring 2019, VR Collisions
Shreyans Khunteta
EECS, Fall 2017-Spring 2018, ChairBots
Malhar Damle
General Engineering, Winter 2021-Spring 2021, ChairBots UI
Denisse Alvarado
EECS, Fall 2019-Summer 2020, Entertainment Robots
Johannes Freischuetz
EECS, Spring 2018-Fall 2019, VR Collisions
Theodora Perednia
Uworked with the ChairBot and is working on new toppers to expand the robot fleet.
Jazmyne Malone
Physics, Fall 2017-Spring 2018, Collision-based Communication
GRAD STUDENT Contributors
Hunter Brown
PhD, Robotics 2023, ONR Arm C2
Ramya Challa
MS Robotics 2023-2024 BanksyPepper
Jeff Klow
MS, Robotics, 2020, ResoBot
Jesse Rond
MS, Robotics, 2018-2019, ImprovBot
Brian Layng
MS, Robotics, 2018-2019, ChairBots
Boh Chun
PhD, Anthropology, 2019-2021 Clearpath, ChairBots, ResoBot
Deanna Flynn
PhD, Robotics, 2021-2022 WaiterBot
Abrar Fallatah
MS HCI, 2019-2020 ChairBots HCI
Christopher Bollinger
MS, Robotics, 2019, ResoBot
Alan Sanchez
MS, Robotics, 2018-2019, ImprovBot
Jeremy Urann
Artist in Residence
Jeremy received his BS in Theatre from Western Washington University. He is interested in understanding and exploring the symbiotic relationship between performance, robots, and education.
(email if you do not see yourself and would like to be listed!!!)
VISITING Artists-in-Residence
David Minor
Ballet Dancer, https://www.davidminormusic.com/about
Robin Jönsson
Choreographer, https://www.robinjonsson.net/