Welcome!

MANUELA M. VELOSO Herbert A. Simon Professor Computer Science Department School of Computer Science (courtesy in RI, MLD, MechE, and ECE) Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890, USA my last name at cmu dot edu +1-412-268-1474 Gates Hillman Center 7002 (To visit me, one of our CoBot robots can be scheduled to escort you to my office.)

• Spring 2013 - 15-780, Graduate AI, co-teaching with Tuomas Sandholm, MW 10:30am-noon, GHC 4303.
• Fall 2012 - 15-491, CMRoboBits - Creating Intelligent Humanoid and Service Mobile Robots, Project-Based Course, MW 3:00-4:30pm, GHC 3201.
• Fall 2012 - 15-887, Planning, Execution, and Learning, co-teaching with Reid Simmons, MW 1:30-3:00pm, GHC 4303.

• CORAL - My research group on intelligent robots that Cooperate, Observe, Reason, Act, and Learn.
• LIST OF PUBLICATIONS
• Also please see below the PhD theses of my students.

• Learn more. Watch CoBot videos. See the publication.
• We are researching and developing effective indoor mobile service robots. We aim at contributing to a multi-robot, multi-human symbiotic relationship, in which robots and humans coordinate and cooperate as a function of their limitations and strengths.
• As of 2012, we have four robots: CoBot1 (2009), CoBot2 (2010), and CoBot 4 (2011), and CoBot 3 (2011) ( not in the picture, deployed for telepresence research and education at the CMU MSc. on Software Engineering):
  
• The robot hardware for all CoBots was designed and built by Mike Licitra. The research is pursued with my students Joydeep Biswas, Stephanie Rosenthal, and Brian Coltin.
  

• Our CORAL/Robot Soccer page for research and news.
• RoboCup'11 took place in Istanbul, July 4-10, 2011.
• RoboCup'12 will take place in Mexico City, end of June 2012.
• RoboCup Wiki.

• See a description of the V-Unit and send me email if you are interested in taking a V-Unit.
• The V-Unit is linked to the Technology Bridge World effort.

• Somchaya Liemhetcharat, Robotics
• Susana Brandao, Electrical and Computer Engineering (CMU-Portugal Program, co-advised by Joao Paulo Costeira, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon, Portugal)
• Brian Coltin, Robotics
• Prashant Reddy, Machine Learning
• Mehdi Samadi, Computer Science (co-advised by Manuel Blum)
• Felipe Trevizan, Machine Learning
• Joydeep Biswas, Robotics
• Max Korein, Robotics
• Juan Pablo Mendoza, Robotics
• Junyun Tay, Mechanical Engineering (CMU ME/NTU CoE Program, co-advised by I-Ming Chen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
• Richard Wang, Computer Sicence (co-advised by Srinivasan Seshan)
• Tekin Mericli, Computer Science, Bogazici University, Turkey (co-advised by H. Levent Akin, Bogazici University)
• Danny Zhu, Computer Science

• Stephanie L. Rosenthal - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2012. Bossa Nova Robotics, Pittsburgh, PA.
  Thesis: "Human-Centered Planning for Effective Task Autonomy" (co-advised by Anind Dey)
• Cetin Mericli - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2011, Bogazici University, Turkey, Postdoc, CSD, CMU.
  Thesis: "Multi-Resolution Model plus Correction Paradigm for Task and Skill Refinement on Autonomous Robots".
  (co-advised by H. Levent Akin, Bogazici University)
• Sarah Aboutalib - Ph.D. Computer Science, December 2010.
  Thesis: "Multiple-Cue Object Recognition for Interactionable Objects" and Videos.
• Stefan Zickler - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2010, iRobot, MA.
  Thesis and videos: "Physics-Based Robot Motion Planning In Dynamic Multi-Body Environments"
• Sonia Chernova - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2009, Assistant Professor, WPI.
  Thesis: "Confidence-Based Robot Policy Learning from Demonstration"
• Elisabeth Crawford - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2009, Birchbox, NY.
  Thesis: "Learning to Improve Negotiation in Semi-Cooperative Agreement Problems"
• Colin McMillen - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2009, reCaptcha, Google, Cambridge, MA.
  Thesis: "Thresholded-Rewards Decision Problems: Acting Effectively in Timed Domains"
• Brenna Argall - Ph.D. Robotics, May 2009, Assistant Professor, Northwestern University.
  Thesis: "Learning Mobile Robot Motion Control from Demonstration and Corrective Feedback"
  (co-advised by Brett Browning)
• Yang Gu - Ph.D. Computer Science, August 2008, DVA-Tion Networks, San Diego, CA.
  Thesis: "Effective Motion Tracking Using Known and Learned Actuation Models"
• Douglas Vail - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2008, Google, Pittsburgh.
  Thesis: "Conditional Random Fields for Activity Recognition"
  (co-advised by John Lafferty).
• Elly Winner - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2008.
  Thesis: "Learning Domain-Specific Planners From Example Plans
• Maayan Roth - Ph.D. Robotics, September 2007, Google, NY.
  Thesis: "Execution-Time Communication Decisions for Coordination of Multi-Agent Teams"
  (co-advised by Reid Simmons).
• James Bruce - Ph.D. Computer Science, December 2006, Google, Mountain View, CA.
  Thesis: "Real-Time Motion Planning and Safe Navigation in Dynamic Multi-Robot Environments"
• Scott Lenser - Ph.D. Computer Science, August 2005, iRobot, MA.
  Thesis: "On-line Robot Adaptation to Environmental Change"
• Patrick Riley - Ph.D. Computer Science, March 2005, Google, Mountain View, CA.
  Thesis: "Coaching: Learning and Using Environment and Agent Models for Advice"
• Rune Jensen - Ph.D. Computer Science, June 2003, Associate Professor at IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
  Thesis: "Efficient BDD-Based Planning for Non-Deterministic, Fault-Tolerant, and Adversarial Domains"
• Michael Bowling - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 2003, Associate Professor, University of Alberta, Canada.
  Thesis: "Multiagent Learning in the Presence of Agents with Limitations"
• William Uther - Ph.D. Computer Science, August 2002, Researcher, National ICT, Sydney, Australia.
  Thesis: "Tree Based Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning"
• Belinda Thom - Ph.D. Computer Science, December 2001.
  Thesis: "BoB: An Improvisational Music Companion"
• Bryan Singer - Ph.D. Computer Science, December 2001, NSA, Washington, DC.
  Thesis: "Stochastic Search for Signal Processing Algorithm Optimization"
• Peter Stone - Ph.D. Computer Science, December 1998, Professor, University of Texas, Austin.
  Thesis: "Layered Learning in Multi-Agent Systems"
• Astro Teller - Ph.D. Computer Science, December 1998, Google, Mountain View, CA.
  Thesis: "Neural Programming and Signal Understanding"
• Karen Haigh - Ph.D. Computer Science, May 1998, BBN.
  Thesis: "Situation-Dependent Learning for Interleaved Planning and Robot Execution"
• Yury Smirnov - Ph.D. Computer Science, August 1997, CEO and founder of Akonite, Inc., CA.
  Thesis: "Hybrid Algorithms for On-Line and Combinatorial Optimization Problems"
  
  
• Juan Fasola - MSc. Computer Science, August 2007, PhD student at USC.
• Kristina Rohlin, M.Sc. Robotics, May 2007, U.S. Navy. (co-advised by Brett Browning)
• Dinesh Govindaraju - M.Sc. Robotics, 2006, Singapore.
• John Gavin - M.Sc. Computer Science, 2005, Microsoft Research, Redmont, WA.
• Jeremy Searock, M.Sc. Robotics, 2005, NREC,(co-advised by Brett Browning)
• Francesco Tamburrino - M.Sc. Robotics, 2004.
• Paul Carpenter - M.Sc. Computer Science, 2003, ICT, LA.
• Kwun Han - 1998, Gigapixel, Inc., Palo Alto, CA.

• RoboCup-2007, the 11th International RoboCup Competitions and Symposium, July 1- July 10, Atlanta, USA.
  • Our CMDragons'07 team for the small-size league is world champion.
  • Our CMPack'07 team for the AIBO league came in 3rd place.
• RoboCup-2006, the 10th International RoboCup Competitions and Symposium, Bremen, Germany.
  • Our CMDragons'06 team for the small-size league is world champion.
• RoboCup-2005, the 9th International RoboCup Competitions and Symposium, July 13-19, 2005, Osaka, Japan.
• 2005 RoboCup USOpen, May 7-10, 2005, Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
• RoboCup-2004, the 8th International RoboCup Competitions and Symposium, June 27 - July 5, 2004, Lisbon, Portugal.
• The 2004 RoboCup US Open, April 24-27, 2004, University of New Orleans:
  • Our CMPack'04 team for the AIBO league is champion.
  • Our CMOwl'04 team for the coach simulation league is champion.
  • Our CMLoki'04 team for the soccer simulation league came in 3rd place.
• The First RoboCup American Open took place April 30 - May 4, 2003, at Carnegie Mellon.
• RoboCup-2003 was be held in Padua, Italy, July 1-12, 2003.
  
• RoboCup-2002 was held in Fukuoka, Japan, June 17-26, 2002.
  We entered two robot teams: our small-size robot team CMDragons'02, and our Sony legged robot team CMPack'02.
• We won first place in the RoboCup-2002 Sony legged league! :-) We are now World Champions.
  • Some pictures, and some more pictures.
• I was General Chair for RoboCup-2001, held for the first time in the USA - Check the results!
  

• I was on sabbatical leave for 2006/2007 as a Radcliffe Fellow at the
  Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
• I was the Program Chair for IJCAI-07, held January 6-12, 2007, in Hyderabad, India. It was a fantastic event! Thanks to all who participated.
  The theme of the conference was "AI and its Benefits to Society."
  The proceedings of the conference are available online at www.ijcai.org , where you can also find instructions on how to order a hard copy, if interested.
• I was program co-chair of AAAI-05, held July 9-13, 2005, in Pittsburgh.
• RoboCup'01, Seattle, USA, August 2-10, 2001.
• IJCAI-99 Workshop: The Third International Workshop on RoboCup, Stockholm, July 31 - August 1, 1999.
• RoboCup'98, La Villette, Paris, July 4-9, 1998.
• AIPS-98, The Fourth International Conference on AI Planning Systems, June 7-10, 1998, Carnegie Mellon Univerity, Pittsburgh, USA.
• NSF-CNPq sponsored workshop on "Intelligent Robotic Agents," Porto Alegre, Brazil, March 17-19, 1997.
• ICML/COLT 1997 Tutorial on "Learning in Planning".
• Immigration Course Fall 1996.

• Villa for rent in Algarve, Portugal.