About
I’m a second year PhD student in the Robotics Department at The University of Michigan Ann Arbor. I work in the Laboratory for Perceptive Robotics and Grounded Reasoning Systems (PROGRESS), advised by Dr. Chad Jenkins, and funded by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP). I previously studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alabama, where I obtained a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees, studying non-linear control and rehabilitative robotics under Dr. Christian Cousin and the Randall Research Scholars Program. I also interned multiple times at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), working in the Robotics and AI division.
My recent research focuses on the intersection between robotic control and planning, including ways to model uncertainty within these problems. I’m especially interested in ways to run more effective and optimal planning/control strategies on non-linear, high degree-of-freedom, and complex systems, paving the way for them to become more assistive to humanity.
Specifically, my work focuses on combining Stein Variational Inference with state-of-the-art planning and control methods, to increase their performance, efficiency, and uncertainty-handling capabilities.
