PhD Thesis Defense

Abstract: Recent advances in large-scale generative modeling have reshaped our understanding of visual intelligence. While models such as diffusion and autoregressive transformers have achieved remarkable success in image and video synthesis, their potential for visual perception and understanding remains underexplored. This thesis investigates how generative models can serve as powerful visual learners—bridging the long-standing divide [...]

Abstract:  Robots possess unique affordances granted by combining software and hardware. Most existing research focuses on the impact of these affordances on human-robot collaboration, but the theory of how robots can facilitate human-human collaboration is underdeveloped. Such a theory would be beneficial in education. An educational device can afford collaboration in both assembly and use. [...]

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Abstract: Although agriculture is a highly mechanized industry, essential and high-value subsectors such as horticulture and floriculture remain heavily reliant on manual labor because they require complex, contact-rich, and highly selective handling of both plants and produce. The variability and density of tree-canopy clutter further complicate the automation process, making robot performance difficult to quantify [...]

Abstract: Real-world decision-making is rife with partial observability, long horizons, and complex multi-agent interactions. This thesis argues that abstraction—forming simplified representations of the task that retain relevant information—offers a unifying principle for tackling these challenges across model-free and model-based reinforcement learning (RL). We develop methods in which abstractions are not hand-designed but emerge from learning objectives, yielding representations that [...]