Ashok Goel

Ashok Goel

Ashok Goel

Professor; School of Interactive Computing
Director| Ph.D. program in Human-Centered Computing; College of Computing
Co-Director; Center for Biologically Inspired Design
Fellow; Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems

Ashok Goel is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA. He obtained his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. At Georgia Tech, he is also the Director of the Ph.D. Program in Human-Centered Computing, a Co-Director of the Center for Biologically Inspired Design, and a Fellow of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems. For more than thirty years, Ashok has conducted research into artificial intelligence, cognitive science and human-centered computing, with a focus on computational design, modeling and creativity. His recent work has explored design thinking, analogical thinking and systems thinking in biological inspired design (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiRDQ4hr9i8), and his research is now developing virtual research assistants for modeling biological systems. Ashok teaches a popular course on knowledge-based AI as part of Georgia Tech's program on Online Masters of Science in Computer Science. He has pioneered the development of virtual teaching assistants, such as Jill Watson, for answering questions in online discussion forums (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbCguICyfTA). Chronicle of Higher Education recently called virtual assistants exemplified by Jill Watson as one of the most transformative educational technologies in the digital era. Ashok is the Editor-in-Chief of AAAI's AI Magazine.

ashok.goel@cc.gatech.edu

Office Location:
GVU/TSRB

Design & Intelligence Laboratory

Google Scholar

Research Focus Areas:
  • Human Augmentation
  • Platforms and Services for Socio-Technical Frontier
  • Shaping the Human-Technology Frontier
Additional Research:

Artificial Intelligence; Cognitive Science; Computational Design; Computational Creativity; Educational Technology; Design Science; Learning Science and Technology; Human-Centered Computing


IRI Connections:

Sonia Chernova

Sonia Chernova

Sonia Chernova

Associate Professor; School of Interactive Computing
Director; Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) Lab

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. I received my Ph.D. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and held positions as a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Media Lab and as Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute prior to joining Georgia Tech. I direct the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) lab, where we work on developing robots that are able to effectively operate in human environments. My research interests span robotics and artificial intelligence, including semantic reasoning, adjustable autonomy, human computation and cloud robotics. Please visit the RAIL lab website for a description of our latest projects.

chernova@cc.gatech.edu

404.385.4753

Personal Page

  • RAIL Lab
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Collaborative Robotics
    • Shaping the Human-Technology Frontier
    Additional Research:

    Robotics; Artificial Intelligence; Semantic Reasoning; Adjustable Autonomy; Human Computation and Cloud Robotics.


    IRI Connections:

    Jaydev Desai

    Jaydev Desai

    Jaydev Desai

    Professor and Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
    Associate Director, Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines
    Director, Georgia Center for Medical Robotics

    Jaydev P. Desai, Ph.D, is currently a Professor and BME Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in August 2016, he was a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). He completed his undergraduate studies from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, in 1993. He received his M.A. in Mathematics in 1997, M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics in 1995 and 1998 respectively, all from the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He is a recipient of several NIH R01 grants, NSF CAREER award, and was also the lead inventor on the "Outstanding Invention of 2007 in Physical Science Category" at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also the recipient of the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award. In 2011, he was an invited speaker at the National Academy of Sciences "Distinctive Voices" seminar series on the topic of "Robot-Assisted Neurosurgery" at the Beckman Center. He was also invited to attend the National Academy of Engineering's 2011 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. He has over 150 publications, is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medical Robotics Research, and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Medical Robotics (currently in preparation). His research interests are primarily in the area of image-guided surgical robotics, rehabilitation robotics, cancer diagnosis at the micro-scale, and rehabilitation robotics. He is a Fellow of the ASME and AIMBE.

    jaydev@gatech.edu

    404.385.5381

    Office Location:
    UA Whitaker Room 3112

    Website

  • Related Site
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Cancer Biology
    • Human Augmentation
    • Miniaturization & Integration
    • Neuroscience
    Additional Research:

    Image-guided surgical robotics, Rehabilitation robotics; Cancer diagnosis at the micro-scale.


    IRI Connections:

    Frank Dellaert

    Frank  Dellaert

    Frank Dellaert

    Professor; School of Interactive Computing
    Robotics Ph.D. Coordinator; College of Computing

    Dr. Dellaert does research in the areas of robotics and computer vision, which present some of the most exciting challenges to anyone interested in artificial intelligence. He is especially keen on Bayesian inference approaches to the difficult inverse problems that keep popping up in these areas. In many cases, exact solutions to these problems are intractable, and as such he is interested in examining whether Monte Carlo (sampling-based) approxIMaTions are applicable in those cases.

    frank.dellaert@cc.gatech.edu

    404.385.2923

    Office Location:
    GVU Center

    IC Page

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Autonomy
    • Shaping the Human-Technology Frontier
    Additional Research:

    Advanced sequential Monte Carlo methods; Spatio-Temporal Reconstruction from Images; Simultaneous Localization and Mapping; Robotics; Computer Vision


    IRI Connections:

    Stephen Balakirsky

    Stephen Balakirsky

    Stephen Balakirsky

    Regents' Researcher; Georgia Tech Research Institute
    Director of Technical Initiatives; IBB
    Chief Scientist | Aerospace, Transportation & Advanced Systems Laboratory (ATAS); GTRI

    Stephen Balakirsky is the Chief Scientist for the Aerospace, Transportation & Advanced Systems Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), and the Director of Technical Initiatives at the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB) at Georgia Tech.

    Balakirsky’s research interests include robotic architectures, planning, bio-automation, robotic standards, and autonomous systems testing. His work in knowledge driven robotics couples real-time sensors and knowledge repositories to allow for flexibility and agility in robotic systems ranging from assembly and manufacturing systems to surveillance and logistics systems. The framework promotes software reuse and the ability to detect and correct for execution errors.

    Previously, Balakirsky worked as a project manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and was a senior research engineer at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL). At ARL, Balakirsky performed mobile robotics research in several areas, including command and control, mapping, human-computer interfaces, target tracking, vision processing and tele-operated control.

    stephen.balakirsky@gtri.gatech.edu

    404.407.8547

    Office Location:
    Food Processing Technology Building, 640 Strong St, Atlanta, GA 30318

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Collaborative Robotics
    Additional Research:

    Robotics; Planning; Knowledge Representation; Ontologies


    IRI Connections:

    Ronald C. Arkin

    Ronald C. Arkin

    Ronald C. Arkin

    Regents' Professor; School of Interactive Computing
    Director; Mobile Robot Laboratory

    Ronald C. Arkin received the B.S. Degree from the University of Michigan, the M.S. Degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1987. He then assumed the position of Assistant Professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he now holds the rank of Regents' Professor and is the Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory. He also serves as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech since October 2008. During 1997-98, Professor Arkin served as STINT visiting Professor at the Centre for Autonomous Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. From June-September 2005, Prof. Arkin held a Sabbatical Chair at the Sony Intelligence Dynamics Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan and then served as a member of the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Group at LAAS/CNRS in Toulouse, France from October 2005-August 2006.

    arkin@cc.gatech.edu

    (404) 894-8209

    Office Location:
    GVU/TSRB

    College of Computing Profile Page

  • Mobile Robot Lab
  • Research Focus Areas:
    • Autonomy
    • Shaping the Human-Technology Frontier
    Additional Research:

    Artificial intelligence; Robotics; Robot ethic; Autonomous agents; Mobile Robots and Unmanned Vehicles; Multi-Agent Robotics; Machine Learning


    IRI Connections:

    Sarah H.Q. Li

    Sarah H.Q. Li - Assistant Professor; Aerospace Engineering

    Sarah H.Q. Li

    Assistant Professor

    Sarah Li will join the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering in January 2025. Her research advances multi-agent models and algorithms to overcome challenges facing future air and space mobility systems. Her research lies at the intersection of game theory, stochastic control, and optimization to enable optimal and safe decision-making of autonomous systems in interactive settings. Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the University of Washington and her B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of British Columbia. She is currently a postdoctoral scholar at ETH Zurich in Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. She was a 2020 Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellow and a 2022 University of Washington Condit Graduate Fellow. During her Ph.D., she interned with Microsoft Research to develop supply chain games and Loon to develop multi-disciplinary design optimization for stratospheric balloons.

    sarahli@gatech.edu

    Personal Website

    Google Scholar

    Additional Research:
    • Cyber-physical Systems
    • Game theory
    • Multi-agent Interactions

    IRI Connections:
    IRI And Role

    Tom Sammon

    Tom Sammon

    Tom Sammon

    Project Manager; Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

    Tom Sammon focuses on implementing lean manufacturing practices and helping companies develop capital equipment applications.

    tom.sammon@innovate.gatech.edu

    770.301.2100

    Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Collaborative Robotics
    Additional Research:

    Automation; Robotics; Conveyor Systems; Equipment Design; Lean Manufacturing; Plant Layout and Design; Plant Management; Project Management; Problem Solving.


    IRI Connections:
    IRI And Role

    Alexander T. Adams

    Alexander Adams

    Alexander Adams

    Assistant Professor

    Alex Adams’s research focuses on designing, fabricating, and implementing new ubiquitous and wearable sensing systems. In particular, he is interested in how to develop these systems using equity-driven design principles for healthcare. Alex leverages sensing, signal processing, and fabrication techniques to design, deploy, and evaluate novel sensing technologies.

    Originally a musician, Alex became fascinated by how he could capture and manipulate sounds through analog hardware and digital signal processing, which led him back to his hometown (Concord, NC). Alex completed his BS at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2014 and his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 2021 (advised by Professor Tanzeem Choudhury). Alex then became the resident Research Scientist for the Precision Behavioral Health Initiative at Cornell Tech (NYC) until the fall of 2022, when he joined the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Currently, his research focuses on the equity-driven design and the development of multi-modal sensing systems to simultaneously assess mental and physical health to enable a new class of mobile health technologies.

    aadams322@gatech.edu

    7044671939

    Office Location:
    237 TSRB

    https://www.uncommonsenselabs.com

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biotechnology
    • Diagnostics
    • Health & Life Sciences
    • Healthcare
    • Machine Learning
    • Medical Device Design, Development and Delivery
    • Optics & Photonics
    • Public Health
    • Robotics
    • Soft Robotics

    IRI Connections:

    Gregory Sawicki

    Gregory Sawicki

    Gregory Sawicki

    Associate Professor; School of Mechanical Engineering & School of Biological Sciences
    Director; PoWeR Lab

    Dr. Gregory S. Sawicki is an Associate Professor at Georgia Tech with appointments in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Biological Sciences. He holds a B.S. from Cornell University ('99) and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California-Davis ('01). Dr. Sawicki completed his Ph.D. in Human Neuromechanics at the University of Michigan, Ann-Arbor ('07) and was an NIH-funded Post-Doctoral Fellow in Integrative Biology at Brown University ('07-'09). Dr. Sawicki was a faculty member in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State and UNC Chapel Hill from 2009-2017. In summer of 2017, he joined the faculty at Georgia Tech with appointments in Mechanical Engineering 3/4 and Biological Sciences 1/4.

    gregory.sawicki@me.gatech.edu

    404.385.5706

    Office Location:
    GTMI 411

    PoWeR Lab

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Human Augmentation
    Additional Research:

    wearable robotics; exoskeletons; locomotion; biomechanics; muscle mechanics


    IRI Connections: