People

PI - Dr. Pryor is a Research Professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. (Full CV)

Professor - Mechanical Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering. Co-PI - Nuclear Robotics Group, Texas Atomic Energy Research Foundation Professorship, Mechanical Engineering.

Ryan Lee - Research Engineer - Ryan Lee graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and M.S. in Business Analytics from the University of Texas at Austin in Spring 2022 and Spring 2023 respectively. Ryan joined the NRG in Winter 2024 to work full-time.

Corrie Van Sice is a Research Scientist Associate at UT Dept. of Computer Science working across multiple groups within the Texas Robotics Consortium. She facilitates research in AI/ML for service and social robots, manipulators, autonomous vehicles, and human-robot interfaces. Corrie Van Sice earned a Masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University in 2011. She's held appointments in academia and industry, including Managing Researcher in the Green 3D Printing lab with Dr. Jeremy Faludi, Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering, and Lead Materials Research Engineer at MakerBot Industries in Brooklyn, NY.

Research Associate - Fabian Parra graduated with a B.Sc in Mechatronic Engineering from the Nueva Granada Military University in Bogota. After working in automation for 5 years, he moved to Estonia where he received his M.Sc Cum Laude in Robotics and Computer Engineering from the University of Tartu in 2020. Fabian joined the NRG in fall 2021. His current research focuses on supervised autonomy and human-machine interfaces.

Research Engineer - Nicholas Chan graduated with a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in Spring 2023. He joined NRG later that Fall to work full-time.

PhD - Andrew Sharp completed his undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology in the spring of 2013 and became part of the the NRG team in the fall of 2013. He started his time at the NRG working on the integration of the newly acquired VaultBot platform. His PhD research focused on levels of autonomy and the use of virtual fixtures for augmented teleoperation of industrial systems. Virtual fixturing can be used to impose software limits on the robot workspace in a similar manner to a hardware jig. Andrew graduated with his PhD in May of 2019 and now works at NASA JSC in Houston, Texas.

Daniel completed his Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering - Computers and Embedded Systems Concentration, and his Minor in Computer Science in the Spring of 2019 at the University of Houston. Following his graduation, he spent two years working as a full-time professional in the Oil & Gas / Service Technology industries, where he gained valuable experience in both an office setting and oil-field environments.

Starting Fall of 2021, Daniel will be pursuing his Ph.D. from the University of Texas - Cockrell School of Engineering and joining NRG to conduct research in the field of Robotics. His current focus involves control systems of remotely operated devices over global networks, a sub-branch formally known as Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT).

Caleb completed his BS in Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University in the Spring of 2022. Leading up to his graduation, Caleb spent five years participating in research at Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of a year-round internship appointment. He joined NRG in the Fall of 2022 to pursue a PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

Steven graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno in fall 2021. As of fall 2022, he is pursuing an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at UT and participating in research with the NRG. He is interested in grasping and manipulation, human-robot interaction, and deployment of robots in hazardous environments.

Akita holds a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering and a dual degree M.S. in Petroleum and Mechanical Engineering, all from the University of Oklahoma. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, with research interests in situational awareness in teleoperation and manipulator contact tasks. He joined NRG in the Spring of 2020.

John holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and an M.S. in Astronautical Engineering, both from the University of Southern California. After working in the aerospace industry, he joined NRG in Fall 2017. His research interests include human-robot interaction and the development of verbal & gestural robotic interfaces. He is also a UH-60 Blackhawk pilot in the US Army Reserve at Fort Hood, Texas.

Alex graduated from UT Austin with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 2019. He joined in NRG in January 2020 and is currently pursuing his PhD, with a focus on autonomous navigation and survey planning. His current research focuses on survey planning for a pseudo-holonomic swerve-drive robot custom built by NRG, fondly referred to as Scrat.

Christina Petlowany graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University in May 2016. She obtained her M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in May 2019. Her current research focuses on user situational awareness for multi-robot systems. Learn more at https://cpetlowany.github.io/.

Frank graduated from Drexel University in 2019 with both a B.S. and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, he joined Dow Chemical where he was both a Process Containment/Mechanical Design Engineer and an Innovation Focal Point for Dow’s Houston manufacturing facilities. Here he focused on driving new robotic, automation, and digitalization technologies into the sites to meet industry 4.0 standards. He also designed and procured both fixed and rotating process equipment. After 2 years in industry, he joined NRG in June 2021 to pursue his PhD in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include the automation and control of mobile robotic inspections and manipulations in unstructured hazardous environments. Frank's personal website can be found at https://frankregal.com/.

Kevin Torres completed his Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Physics under the Radiation option at The University of Texas at Austin. Before joining the NRG, he was a URA that worked on a particle and gas sampler that collected air samples to test for radioactive material in the air. He is currently working to obtain a master’s degree that will take a comprehensive look at the radiation sensing modalities deployed for a set of robots performing a survey or responding to an event.

Selma Wanna joined NRG as an undergraduate research assistant during the summer of 2015. She graduated with her Bachelors of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering the summer of 2017 and joined NRG as a graduate student that fall. Her research is focused semantic parsing using statistical and machine learned methods to map natural language to meaning representations. Selma has worked on over 10 robots and robotics projects since she became a member of the University of Texas's Robotics and Automation Society. Her favorite fictional robot is K2SO and her favorite real robot is Kuri.

Sanat is an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined NRG in the Spring of 2023. He is pursuing work related to the implementation of human-robot collaboration.

Mathew Huang is an undergraduate mechanical engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the NRG in the Spring of 2023. He is interested in pursuing knowledge on the topic of human-robot integration. He looks forward to working with supervised training sets and contributing to computer-aided design.

Shivansh is a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined NRG as an undergraduate research assistant in 2023. He looks forward to working on hard problems and overclocking his computer.

Asha Karmakar is a undergraduate in Computer Science at UT Austin. She joined the NRG in Fall 2021. She is interested in expanding her knowledge of ROS and working on integrating robotics with mixed reality systems.

Mary graduated from Ohio University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering in Spring 2020. She joined NRG in June 2020 to pursue her PhD. Research interest topics include controls and automation in uncertain environments.

MS - Dalton graduated from UT Austin with a Mechanical Engineering degree in May 2021 and proceeded obtain a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2022. Prior to joining NRG, Dalton focused on precision manufacturing, and he worked to apply that knowledge in robotics. On the NRG team, Dalton's main goal was to test relaxed constraint motion planning developed by Ademola Oridate on simulated and real robots with the surface preparation team.

PhD - Adam Allevato joined the NRG in Fall 2014 after graduating with his Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University. His research focused on processing 3D point cloud data to perform a variety of remote manipulation tasks.

Research Engineer - Can received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Middle East Technical University and his MSc and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. His research interest is trajectory optimization for UAVs and Directional Drilling.

Research Engineer - Chris Suarez graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2014. After working industry as a systems engineer for 2 years, he joined NRG in the Fall of 2016. He received his MS in 2019 focusing on 3D obstacle detection for highly complex ground vehicles in hazardous environments. Currently, he is a full-time research engineer working on mobile autonomous platforms for the Army Futures Command.

Postdoc and PhD - Andy came to the Nuclear Robotics Group as a Master's student in 2011, and finished his PhD working for NRG. He also worked in a postdoc position at the NRG lab until August 2019. His primary research interests were compliant control, grasping, and machine learning. His research focused on safer, more delicate manipulation with rigid industrial robots. He now works for PickNik Robotics Software Consultants.

PhD - Joseph's interests lied in the design and operation of dynamically-deployed robotic systems for use in confined, hazardous environments. His PhD, completed in 2015, focused on performing neutron radiography using robots for part manipulation.

Lab Manager - Cynthia graduated from the University of Texas with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 2021. She joined NRG in Summer 2021 as the lab manager. When not managing the lab, she worked on autonomous navigation and induction charging analysis.

Jared graduated with his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from NRG in August of 2024. His research focused on autonomous navigation and mapping, and he began work at Argonne National Laboratory after graduation.

Wahab graduated in Mechancial Engineering from UT Austin. He joined NRG in the summer of 2022. He helped update and maintain key research software packages into modern versions of ROS and implement them on new hardware.

Ethan completed his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin in Spring 2022. He is pursuing a Master's in Mechanical Engineering with intent to graduate in 2023. His research focuses on novel mechanical design for unreachable and hazardous environments.

PhD - Kyle Schroeder completed his PhD in July, 2013 with his dissertation entitled "Requirements for effective collision detection on industrial serial manipulators." After working for 2 years as a full-time student affiliate at LANL, he moved to Arizona where he is studying volitional control and feedback of robotic prosthetic devices as a post doctoral research candidate in the Human Machine Integration Laboratory at Arizona State University. He is also researching and developing powered prosthetic ankles at SpringActive (www.springactive.com).

Nick Hashem completed his Bachelor's degree in Physics at the University of Texas at Austin. Nick joined the NRG in the Summer of 2016. His research focused on investigating the principles of neutron radiography and robotic systems for use in non-destructive testing applications. This included examining methods to determine the quality of these radiographic images.

Connor completed his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University in the fall of 2015. He took a Design Engineer position with Lockheed Martin after graduation, where he worked on the F-16 retrofit team. After spending over a year on that aircraft, he transitioned to the Skunk Works organization, where he served as a research/manufacturing engineering on the Dream Chaser Cargo System team. He spent time as a structural design engineer on a classified program and took a stretch assignment as a multi-discipline design tools programmer before electing to return to graduate school in the fall of 2019. He is currently the lead engineer on the development and test of a compact, robotic vehicle, whose mission is to inspect primary and secondary seals of floating-roof petroleum tanks.

PhD - Brian completed his PhD in February 2013 titled, "Object recognition and pose estimation for nuclear manipulation in nuclear materials handling applications," in which he developed a new cylindrical histogram method using 3D point clouds to recognize and locate specularly reflective objects in a specularly reflective environment (i.e. shiny metal objects in a metal glovebox). Brian continued at U.T. Austin as post doctorate until he accepted a position at LANL in August, 2013.

Katelyn graduated in Aerospace Engineering in 2023. She joined the lab in the fall of 2021. She assisted in evaluation of GPS modules, demoing various robots in the lab, and development of a key plugin in our Augmeneted Reality application AugRE.

Matthew Horn received a Mechanical Engineering degree Cum Laude from Rice University. Matt joined the NRG in early July 2014 and graduated with his M.S.E with a certification in Robotics in May 2017. His previous research involves grasp planning in hazardous environments with hazardous materials and supporting several other projects that involve object manipulation or contact tasks. His current research involves handling hazardous materials between autonomous agents. He also researches the link between robot behaviors and their impact on human trust.

MS - Adrian Abeyta completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering at The University of New Mexico during the Spring of 2019. Before joining the Nuclear Robotics Group in the Fall of 2019, Adrian worked as a research student at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He completed his Master's degree with NRG in Spring 2021, focusing on task planning and execution for autonomous mobile systems in hazardous environments.

URA - Ian graduated with his Mechanical Engineering Bachelor's degree in 2022. He joined NRG as an undergraduate researcher during the summer of 2021. His work areas included CAD, mechanical design, and learning ROS. In his spare time, Ian enjoys backpacking and camping. Ian is now pursuing graduate school at Carnegie Mellon.

MS - Jack completed his undergraduate degree in Petroleum Engineering at The University of Oklahoma in 2018. He joined the NRG in January of 2019 and executed a research project with partners in the Downstream Oil&Gas industry to automate hazardous process tasks. In addition to his academic record, he has internship experience in the Oil&Gas industry and at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He completed his Master's degree in Spring 2021, researching path planning and industrial automation.

MS - Ben Ebersole completed his undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University and joined the NRG team in Spring of 2014. His research is part of a collaborative effort to develop a mobile manipulator system which can survey, place, and retrieve items within a specified hazardous environment, with a particular focus on the autonomous navigation of its vehicular base. He has graduated from the program December 2016 with an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in the Nuclear & Radiation Engineering program.

Adam graduated from the University of Texas with a B.S in Mechanical Engineering in the Spring of 2017. He joined NRG in his last semester as an undergrad and continued with the lab while working on his Masters, which he finished in the Spring of 2019. Adam graduated with his PhD in 2023 researching manipulation and compliant/contact tasks by applying screw theory.

Caitlin graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2023. She joined NRG in the fall of 2020 and worked on CAD models with the Woodside team, demoing various robots in the lab, and development of a key plugin in our Augmeneted Reality application AugRE.

MS - Lucas Gallegos completed his Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering during the Spring of 2017 at The University of New Mexico. Before joining the Nuclear Robotics Group, he worked as a research student at Los Alamos National Laboratory for four summers while he completed his undergraduate studies. His research at UT focued on automation applications involving a 6 degree of freedom Stewart Platform.

Sidharth Nair graduated in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2023. He joined NRG as an undergraduate research assistant in the summer of 2021 and is supported IoT and electrical implementation for many projects in the lab.

Meredith completed her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in the spring of 2015. She joined the NRG group in the summer of 2015 to lead a research project with a team of undergraduates. She graduated with her PhD in 2023 and her research involved task planning and execution for autonomous mobile systems in hazardous environments.

MS - Cassidy Elliott graduated with her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Alabama in May of 2018. Her interest in exploring the applications of robotics in the defense industry led her to join the NRG. Her research focuses on improving mobile manipulation using affordance templates. Cassidy spent her summer working at Woodside Energy in Perth, Western Australia in support of her research.

Srinath completed his undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and his Masters at Purdue University. After working in the industry for 2 years, he joined NRG in the Fall of 2019. His research focuses on motion planning and in designing flight control systems for autonomous navigation.

MS - Mark Jennings received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from UT in May 2019. He completed a Master's degree in Summer 2021, specializing in dynamic systems and controls. His research at NRG includes collaborative manufacturing and robotic manipulation. He maintains a personal website at makr.org!

MS - Conor graduated from UT Austin with a bachelors in Mechanical Engineering in spring 2016, and then joined the NRG to pursue his Masters. His research focused on perception and the user interface for a robot performing remote inspections in a hazardous environment. 

MS - Edwin graduate with a Master's degree in Spring 2018. His research focused on integrating peripheral hardware into autonomous systems.

MS - Clinton Peterson joined the Nuclear Robotics Group in Fall 2013 after receiving a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas. As an undergraduate he worked as a research assistant at the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory. His work consisted of fabricating a material reduction device for the disassembly of used plutonium pits. In 2015, Clinton received his Masters degree and became a full-time employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He enjoys bass guitar, weight lifting, and burritos.

MS - Nitish completed his undergraduate studies in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and he joined NRG in Fall 2017. His research focused on compliant control and transition from perception-based control to contact-based control.

MS - Alex von Sternberg graduated from The University of Texas in 2012 with his Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. He then went to work at Johnson Space Center for L-3 Communications where he wrote C++ simulation models of systems on the International Space Station. He joined NRG in the Fall of 2014, where he researches compliant control of industrial robots. Alex Completed his Masters in May, 2016 and accepted a full-time position at Los Alamos National Labs.

MS - Jack's research focused on redesigning the human-robot interface to facilitate intuitive teleoperation of an anthropomorphic dual arm robot. In 2014, Jack received his Masters degree from NRG. He is now a PhD student at UT Austin, studying under Dr. Maruthi Akella.

MS - Zahin Nambiar completed his Master's Degree in Summer 2021. Before joining the Nuclear Robotics Group as a GRA, Zahin worked in logistics automation as a hardware engineering intern at Amazon Robotics, where he works now. His research interests include autonomous vehicle navigation and applied artificial intelligence.

URA - Conner joined the lab as a research assistant in Fall 2017. He predominantly worked on CAD and mechatronics projects and was the lab's self proclaimed 3D printer whisperer.

URA - John Elson worked at NRG while an undergraduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He worked on optimizing object recognition software by collecting data with different sensors, and comparing the sensors' relative recognition abilities.

URA - Alex supported Dr. Pryor and graduate students in the development of robotic arms and their associated software to be used in the manipulation of nuclear materials inside a glove box. She worked with the then new Microsoft Kinect, designing and conducting tests to determine the accuracy of the device as a cost-effective sensor to locate and potentially identify objects within the constraints of the glove box containing nuclear materials. Alex currently works in the Washington DC area.

URA - Thomas Lu joined NRG in Fall 2014 as an undergraduate student at the University of Texas. He assisted in research focusing on 3D point cloud data processing. He enjoys listening to classical music and browsing StackExchange.

URA - Vikram joined NRG in Fall 2018. He worked on control and path planning for Scrat, our wheeled mobile robot platform.

URA - Ceanna joined the lab as an undergraduate research assistant in Summer 2020, working on the AFC project.

URA - Nathan worked for NRG while pursuing his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering here at UT. He participated in his high school's FIRST Robotics team where he was the lead programer for two seasons. In the NRG, Nathan took the lead in developing 3D point cloud vision techniques for scanning a room in order to determine if items were added or removed from a storage facility.

URA - Tiffany Yang worked with the lab while she was a sophomore in Mechanical Engineering. She worked with object recognition software to collect a database of 3D point cloud images and using it to train sensors to identify those objects in an effort to make robots more autonomous.