PhD Thesis Proposal
Hanbyul Joo

Measuring and Modeling Kinesic Signals in Social Communication

GHC 8102

Abstract: Humans use subtle and elaborate body signals to convey their thoughts, emotions, and intentions. "Kinesics" is a term that refers to the study of such body movements used in social communication, including facial expressions and hand gestures. Understanding kinesic signals is fundamental to understanding human communication; it is among the key technical barriers to [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
R. Arun Srivatsan

Probabilistic Approaches for Pose Estimation

NSH 1305

Abstract: Pose estimation is central to several robotics applications such as registration, manipulation, SLAM, etc. In this thesis, we develop probabilistic approaches for fast and accurate pose estimation. A fundamental contribution of this thesis is formulating pose estimation in a parameter space in which the problem is truly linear and thus globally optimal solutions can [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
Ada J. Zhang

Ada J. Zhang: Personalized Human Motion Classification

NSH 1305

Abstract: Algorithms for human motion understanding have a wide variety of applications, including health monitoring, performance assessment, and user interfaces. However, differences between individual styles make it difficult to achieve robust performance, particularly for individuals who were not in the training population. We believe that adapting algorithms to individual behaviors is essential for effective human [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Marynel Vázquez
Carnegie Mellon University

Reasoning About Spatial Patterns of Human Behavior During Group Conversations with Robots

GHC 4405

Abstract: The goal of this dissertation is to develop computational models for robots to detect and sustain the spatial patterns of behavior that naturally emerge during free-standing group conversations with people. These capabilities have often been overlooked by the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) community, but they are essential for robots to appropriately interact with and around [...]

PhD Thesis Defense
Shervin Javdani
Carnegie Mellon University

Acting under Uncertainty for Information Gathering and Shared Autonomy

GHC 8102

Abstract: Acting under uncertainty is a fundamental challenge for any decision maker in the real world. As uncertainty is often the culprit of failure, many prior works attempt to reduce the problem to one with a known state. However, this fails to account for a key property of acting under uncertainty: we can often gain [...]