Research Scientist

I joined IHMC in 2026 as a software engineer for collaborative AI and robots. I work with Dr. Matt Johnson and Dr. Cristian Nino at the institute’s National Center for Collaborative Autonomy. My focus is on designing systems that incorporate multiple robots with different forms, such as quadruped, drones and wheeled robots, to work alongside a human operator to complete tasks efficiently.

I was born and raised in Mumbai, India. I have a bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Telecommunication from the University of Mumbai, India. I was part of the robotics club in my undergraduate years, participating in national and international robotics competitions. I used to do embedded programming and printed circuit board (PCB) designing, working on mainly autonomous wheeled robots. I wanted to work on human-robot interaction and decided to do my master’s in robotics at Oregon State University under Dr. Heather Knight.

At Oregon State, I worked on robot manipulators and in contact manipulation and how can we enable human-in-the-loop robot systems. I also worked on making robots more “social.” I did my thesis on spatial communication in human robot interaction.

As far as industry experience goes, I did internships at Magna International and Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. During my time at these two companies, I worked on writing low-level drivers for robots; behavior cloning for manipulation systems; dexterous manipulation; intuitive teleoperation systems; and designing software systems for robotics working with humans. Overall, across my research at Oregon State and my internships, the focus has been on incorporating robots to work alongside humans and not replace them.