Deepak Pathak, the Raj Reddy Associate Professor of Robotics in Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute (RI), has received a 2026 Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The award recognizes early career faculty in science, technology, engineering and mathematics whose research shows exceptional promise for advancing capabilities critical for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. This year, 23 university professors will share $17 million in funding to support research on key naval challenges.
Pathak’s project, “Learning To Reason via Exploration in the Open World,” addresses how to make artificial intelligence systems scale beyond controlled settings in the real world to solve complex tasks ranging from digital to physical. His research seeks to rethink how AI models can be enabled to perform autonomous exploration, self-supervised reasoning and continuous adaptation. Rather than relying solely on static datasets, Pathak’s approach encourages systems to learn by interacting with their environments, continuously improving their ability to make decisions in new and uncertain situations. The goal is to build AI that can generalize more like humans by learning from experience and adapting over time.
Pathak’s research applies to unique naval challenges and beyond. More resilient and adaptable AI systems could help advance disaster-response robots, industrial automation and autonomous transportation. By helping machines learn to reason through exploration, Pathak’s work aims to move AI closer to operating safely and reliably in the open world.
At CMU, Pathak leads the Pathak Research Group. Drawing inspiration from psychology, the group works at the intersection of computer vision, machine learning and robotics to design practical, adaptable systems capable of operating beyond carefully scripted conditions.
Pathak is also co-founder and CEO of Skild AI, a company developing a general-purpose “brain” designed to control any robot for any task, with an emphasis on delivering tangible, real-world impact. Skild AI is currently valued at more than $14 billion.
Read more about the Young Investigator Program on the ONR website.
For More Information: Aaron Aupperlee | 412-268-9068 | aaupperlee@cmu.edu