Vaibhav Unhelkar is an assistant professor of computer science at Rice University, where he leads a research group on human-centered artificial intelligence. He envisions a future where robots work with humans – not merely as pre-programmed tools but as autonomous assistants, teammates, and even trainers. Towards this vision, his research enables “robots to work with humans” and “humans to become informed users of robots.” His contributions have featured in highly selective academic venues and, in collaboration with industry partners, resulted in novel robotic systems. He received his doctorate in autonomous systems from MIT. Before joining Rice, Unhelkar worked as a researcher at X the Moonshot Factory (formerly, Google X). He is originally from Indore (India) and an avid reader of science fiction.

I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Rice University, where I direct the Robotics and Physical Interactions Lab (RobotΠ Lab). I am broadly interested in robotic systems that can physically interact with other robots, people, and the world. By developing algorithms in optimization, planning, learning, estimation, and control, my research is focused on efficient, robust, and generalizable manipulation systems, addressing problems that range from small scale grasping and in-hand manipulation, to large scale dual-arm manipulation, mobile manipulation, and multi-robot manipulation. I am enthusiastic about working with FIRST at Rice to help K-12 students get an early and solid taste of STEM, which will have great potentials to inspire the students in planning their future education and career development.

Kaiyuan Yang is an Assistant Professor of ECE at Rice University since 2017. He received his B.S. in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University, China, in 2012, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, in 2017. His research interests include digital and mixed-signal circuit and system design for secure, intelligent, and low-power microsystems in biomedical and internet of things applications. He received multiple best paper awards from top-tier conferences, including IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), IEEE Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), and IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC). Dr. Yang is passionate about engaging K-12 students in STEM fields and STEM education in general. His outreach goals and methods are well aligned with that of the FIRST alumni chapter at Rice. He believes the FIRST organization will serve as a fantastic platform for reaching out to K-12 students.