Graduate Students

Jonathan graduated with an M.S. and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA. He is currently a PhD student working on skills and behaviors for modular robots. When he’s not teaching robots to behave, he thinks about what his creations might one day teach us.

Alex graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a Minor in Computer Science from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2022. During his time there, he worked for Dr. Tohid Sardarmehni developing optimal control algorithms for a heterogeneous robot swarm and interned at the Air Force Research Lab in Edwards AFB, CA. After graduating, he worked as a modeling and simulation engineer in Tucson, AZ before beginning his graduate studies at NRG in Spring 2024.  His research focuses on path planning, robot manipulation, and learning-based approaches to robot perception.

Agnes Luhtaru is a visiting research scholar from the University of Tartu, Estonia, where she is pursuing a PhD in natural language processing. She works on developing and evaluating practical applications that leverage large pretrained language models.

Parul graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in June 2024. She joined NRG in fall 2024, beginning her first semester as a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at UT. She is interested in active perception and optimal view planning for robotic systems in space, including the dynamics required for observing, reconstructing, and interacting with in-orbit objects.

Talal completed his B.S in Mechanical Engineering in Fall 2023 specializing in Mechatronics, Robotics and a certificate in Computational Science & Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Throughout his time as an undergraduate student, he interned at various locations, immersing himself in signal processing, firmware development and controls engineering. Having joined NRG in Fall 2024, Talal is pursuing a thesis-based MS in mechanical engineering, specializing in dynamic systems, controls, and embedded systems for robotics. His research interests include high-speed computational robotics and edge computing for resource-limited settings and is currently researching and applying best-view trajectory planning and sensing for underwater robotics.

Luis graduated with a B.S. in Mechatronics Engineering from Texas A&M University. During his time there he worked as a URA in the Adaptive Robotics and Technology Lab, worked on the DART and Software teams as a member of TAMU Robomasters, and interned at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He joined the NRG lab in Spring 2024 and is currently pursuing his Masters in Mechanical Engineering.

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.