PhD Speaking Qualifier

Abstract: Locomotion across natural environments such as sand, mud, and water presents a fundamental challenge for robots due to the heterogeneous, deformable, and often unpredictable properties of these substrates. In this talk, I will share how mechanical and structural adaptation can enable robust mobility in such complex settings through the development and characterization of two [...]

Abstract: Humans possess an extraordinary ability to manipulate objects, discerning position, shape, and other properties with just a glance. How can robots be endowed with similar perceptual and dexterous manipulation capabilities? In this talk, I will present a method that combines the sample efficiency of traditional model-based approaches with the high generalizability of deep learning [...]

Abstract: Transferring skills between different objects remains one of the core challenges of open-world robot manipulation. Generalization needs to take into account the high-level structural differences between distinct objects while still maintaining similar low-level interaction control. In this paper, we propose an example-based zero-shot approach to skill transfer. Rather than treating skills as atomic, we [...]