Assistant Professor, UNL

Assistant Professor, UNL

Works on robust coordination and decision-making for multi-robot teams in adversarial settings.

About me

I am an incoming Assistant Professor in the School of Computing, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). My research is dedicated to a fundamental challenge for the future of robotics:

"How can teams of autonomous robots collaborate and succeed in complex environments, especially when facing intelligent adversaries?"

This opposition can take many forms. It might be the environment itself, like a team of drones battling high winds to find survivors in a wildfire. It could be an active adversary, such as a hostile agent jamming a drone’s sensors or ambushing an autonomous convoy. Or, it could even come from within a coalition, as agents switch allegiances for individual gain.

To address these challenges, I develop new theoretical foundations for multi-agent systems that are rigorously tested in the real world. My interdisciplinary approach draws from computational geometry, game theory, control theory, and operations research to build a framework centered on three key pillars that I’ve dubbed The Three C’s of Adversarial Multi-Agent Systems (AMAS):

  • Constraint: Optimizing coordination within the robot team against constraints,
  • Contention: Developing strategies to outmaneuver or intercept adversaries, and
  • Conceit: Leveraging informational advantages to exploit opponent vulnerabilities.

I am a strong believer in experimental validation, and I actively use both in-house fabricated and commercial autonomous robots to bring my research from theory to practice (images are from my time with the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Indian Institute of Technology Madras). Before my time at CMU, I worked at The MathWorks Inc., where I created advanced simulations for autonomous vehicles, including for the Indy-500 oval circuit.

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My work has been recognized with best-paper nominations and invitations to special-issue journals. Beyond research, I am deeply passionate about mentoring the next generation of roboticists and was honored to be nominated for CMU’s prestigious ‘Andy Award’ for my dedication to student mentorship.