PhD Thesis Defense

Name: RI PhD Thesis Defense – Uksang Yoo
Start: 2026-04-29T14:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-04-29T15:30:00-04:00
Location: GHC 6121

List
Month

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			0 events 1 0 events, 1	0 events 2 0 events, 2	1 event 3 1 event, 3 10:00 am - 11:30 am PhD Thesis Defense Ananya Rao Friday, April 3 10:00 am - 11:30 am RI PhD Thesis Defense – Ananya Rao Who: Ananya Rao Date: Friday, April 3rd Time: 10 AM ET Location: NSH 3305 Zoom Link Meeting ID: 949 1271 6317 Passcode: 809985 Title: Spectral-Based Coordination of Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Teams for Information Gathering Abstract: Extreme environments, such as those encountered in planetary exploration or disaster response, present complex, time-sensitive tasks with significant uncertainty. In such settings, heterogeneous [...]	0 events 4 0 events, 4
0 events 5 0 events, 5	0 events 6 0 events, 6	2 events 7 2 events, 7 10:00 am - 12:00 pm PhD Thesis Defense Mrinal Verghese Tuesday, April 7 10:00 am - 12:00 pm RI Ph.D. Thesis Defense – Mrinal Verghese Date: 7th April 2026 Time: 10:00 a.m. (ET) Location: NSH 3305 Zoom: Link Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Who: Mrinal Verghese Title: Strategies for Robot Learning from Human Data Abstract: Robot learning is fundamentally data-constrained. Internet-scale human data is a promising source of additional data about human environments, tasks, and common skills. This data comes in diverse representations, such as human videos [...], 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm PhD Thesis Defense Neehar Peri Tuesday, April 7 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm RI PhD Defense – Neehar Peri Date: April 7th, 2026 Time: 3:30 PM (ET) Location: NSH 3305 Zoom Link Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Who: Neehar Peri Title: Towards Scalable Open-World 3D Perception Abstract: State estimation is a fundamental component of embodied perception. For safe navigation, we argue that robots (and autonomous vehicles (AVs) specifically) must detect, track, and forecast all object categories, not just those [...]	0 events 8 0 events, 8	0 events 9 0 events, 9	1 event 10 1 event, 10 9:00 am - 11:00 am PhD Thesis Defense Abigail Breitfeld Friday, April 10 9:00 am - 11:00 am RI PhD Thesis Defense – Abigail Breitfeld Date: April 10th, 2026 Time: 09:00 AM (ET) Location: NSH 4305 Zoom Link Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Who: Abigail Breitfeld Abstract: Dynamic Multi-Objective Path Planning for Exploration Abstract: Robotic explorers play a crucial role in acquiring data from areas that are difficult or impossible for humans to reach. Whether for planetary exploration, search and rescue missions, agriculture, or [...]	0 events 11 0 events, 11
0 events 12 0 events, 12	1 event 13 1 event, 13 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm PhD Thesis Defense Tairan He Monday, April 13 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm RI PhD Thesis Defense – Tairan He Who: Tairan He Date: Monday, April 13, 2026 Time: 12:30 PM ET Room: GHC 8102 Zoom link Title: Scalable Sim-to-Real Learning for General-Purpose Humanoid Skills Abstract: Humanoid robots are compelling because they share the physical interface of the human world, including stairs, doors, tools, shelves, and workspaces designed around human embodiment. However, this same embodiment also makes [...]	1 event 14 1 event, 14 12:15 pm - 1:45 pm PhD Thesis Defense Rishi Veerapaneni Tuesday, April 14 12:15 pm - 1:45 pm RI PhD Thesis Defense – Rishi Veerapaneni Date: April 14th, 2026 Time: 12:15 PM (ET) Location: NSH 3305 Zoom Link Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Who: Rishi Veerapaneni Title: Efficient Multi-Agent Motion Planning using Local Policies Abstract: My thesis is motivated by a future full of multi-agent systems: robots running warehouses, humanoids constructing buildings, aerial and ground robots delivering packages in urban environments, and autonomous rovers collaborating on [...]	1 event 15 1 event, 15 9:00 am - 10:30 am PhD Thesis Defense Jeong Hun Lee Wednesday, April 15 9:00 am - 10:30 am RI PhD Thesis Defense – JJ (Jeong Hun) Lee Date: April 15th, 2026 Time: 9:00 am (EST) Room Location: NSH 3305 Zoom link Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Who: Jeong Hun (JJ) Lee Title: Just Keep Swimming: Harnessing Fluid-Robot Interaction for Bioinspired Aquatic Locomotion Abstract: Matching the swimming efficiency and agility of fish has remained an elusive goal in underwater robotics. Such locomotion capabilities require complex vortex interactions between the robot's body and [...]	0 events 16 0 events, 16	0 events 17 0 events, 17	0 events 18 0 events, 18
0 events 19 0 events, 19	2 events 20 2 events, 20 9:30 am - 11:00 am PhD Thesis Defense Gokul Swamy Monday, April 20 9:30 am - 11:00 am RI PhD Thesis – Gokul Swamy Date: April 20, 2026 Time: 9:30-11 AM Location: NSH 3305 Zoom Link Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Who: Gokul Swamy Title: Efficient Interactive Learning: Learning More From Less Abstract: Even as we near the limits of what human-generated data we can scrape from the Internet, today's decision-making agents -- from robots to large language models (LLMs) -- are [...], 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm PhD Thesis Defense Cornelia Bauer Monday, April 20 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm RI PhD Thesis Defense – Cornelia Bauer Who: Cornelia Bauer Date: April 20, 2026 Time: 1:00 PM Location: NSH 4305 Zoom Link: here Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Title: Embracing Contact: Leveraging Physical Interactions for Enhanced Robotic Control Abstract: As robotic systems become increasingly capable and commercially available, particularly in the form of humanoids and dexterous hands, enabling them to physically interact with their environment remains a fundamental challenge. Humans [...]	1 event 21 1 event, 21 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm PhD Thesis Defense Nupur Kumari Tuesday, April 21 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm RI PhD Thesis Defense – Nupur Kumari Who: Nupur Kumari Date: April 21, 2026 Time: 2:00 PM Location: NSH 3305 (3rd floor) Zoom link Type: Ph.D. Thesis Defense Title: Customizing Text-to-Image Diffusion Models Abstract Recent advances in Generative AI highlight its growing potential to reshape content creation workflows, with the potential to support highly personalized use cases for everyday users and independent creators. However, realizing these [...]	0 events 22 0 events, 22	0 events 23 0 events, 23	0 events 24 0 events, 24	0 events 25 0 events, 25
0 events 26 0 events, 26	0 events 27 0 events, 27	0 events 28 0 events, 28	1 event 29 1 event, 29 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm PhD Thesis Defense Uksang Yoo Wednesday, April 29 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm RI PhD Thesis Defense – Uksang Yoo TBD - details will be posted no later than April 15	0 events 30 0 events, 30