Organizers

Kalvik Jakkala (primary point of contact)

Postdoctoral researcher, Texas A&M University

Bio: He is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Texas A&M University, specializing in machine learning and robotics with a focus on Bayesian learning, approximate inference, and path planning. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where his work advanced efficient sensor placement and multi-robot informative path planning using sparse Gaussian processes. Kalvik has published in leading venues such as ICRA and The International Journal of Robotics Research, and his research has applications in autonomous underwater vehicles, explainable AI, and uncertainty quantification. He also brings experience from industry as an intern at GE Research and has served as a reviewer for top robotics conferences.

Jason O’Kane

Professor, Texas A&M University

Website: https://jokane.net/

Bio: He is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Before joining A&M in 2022, he was Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Associate Chair for Academics, and Director of the Center for Computational Robotics at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on algorithms for robot autonomy, ranging from theory to fielded applications, with about 100 peer-reviewed publications at leading robotics venues. O’Kane earned his Ph.D. and M.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his B.S. from Taylor University. His honors include the NSF CAREER Award (2010), Breakthrough Star Award (2015), Distinguished Research Service Award (2019), Outstanding Senior Researcher Award (2019), and Most Valuable Professor Award (2018). He serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation and the IEEE Transactions on Robotics, and has co-organized workshops at RSS and CASE, as well as serving as Co-Chair for WAFR 2022 and 2024.

Yogesh Girdhar

Associate Scientist With Tenure, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Website: https://warp.whoi.edu

Bio: Yogesh Girdhar is a computer scientist, and the PI of the WARPLab (http://warp.whoi.edu), and Associate Scientist (with tenure) at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in the Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering department. He received his BS and MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY; and his Ph.D. from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. During his Ph.D. Girdhar developed an interest in ocean exploration using autonomous underwater vehicles, which motivated him to come to WHOI, initially as a postdoc, and then later continue as a scientist to start WARPLab. Girdhar’s research has since then focused on developing autonomous exploration robots that, through the use of AI, can accelerate the scientific discovery in the oceans. Some concrete examples of his research interests include: underwater physics informed 3D scene reconstruction; autonomous marine animal behavior monitoring; unsupervised substrate characterization; interactive vision guided underwater exploration; detecting marine bioactivity hotspots; learning to swim acrobatically; and generative models for distribution of high dimensional taxonmical observations. He organized the Robots for Understanding Natural Ecosystems (RUNE) Workshop at ICRA 2024, bringing together experts in robotics and ecology. Some notable recognition of his work includes the Best Paper Award in Service Robotics at ICRA 2020, finalist for Best Paper Award at IROS 2018, and honorable mention for 2014 CIPPRS Doctoral Dissertation Award.

Alberto Quattrini Li

Associate Professor, Dartmouth

Website: https://rlab.cs.dartmouth.edu/albertoq/

Bio: His main research interests include autonomous mobile robotics and active perception, applied to the marine domain, dealing with problems that span from multi-robot exploration and coverage to vision-based state estimation. Recent projects funded by the National Science Foundation include developing a heterogeneous team of robots for monitoring cyanobacterial blooms and mapping underwater structures. He has contributed to the community with different activities, including serving as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters, and the ICRA and IROS Conferences; being the publication chair for the IEEE International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems 2019; coorganizing the RSS 2019 2nd Workshop on Informative Path Planning and Adaptive Sampling, the ICRA 2021 1st Advanced Marine Robotics TC Workshop – Active Perception, and the ICRA 2025 Workshop Robots in the Wild; and broadening STEM participation through summer school camps and mentorship programs.

Monika Roznere

Assistant Professor, Binghamton University

Website: https://www.monikaroznere.com/

Bio: She specializes in marine robotics with a notable passion in improving the perception capabilities of low-cost robotic systems while navigating in challenging underwater environments. Her research has touched in areas of sensor fusion, multi-robot collaboration, robotic design, and 3D reconstruction – making impacts in problems from environmental monitoring to underwater historical site exploration. The Link Foundation Ocean Engineering and Instrumentation has generously supported her past projects. She has also contributed to the robotics community from different fronts, including serving as an Associate Editor for the ICRA Conference, co-organizing the ICRA 2025 Workshop Robots in the Wild, and promoting inclusion in STEM through mentorship programs such as Women in STEM (WiSTEM) and E.E. Just.

Marios Xanthidis

Research Scientist, Stiftelsen for industriell og teknisk forskning (SINTEF)

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/mariosx

Bio: He is a Research Scientist at SINTEF Ocean in Norway, specializing in autonomous underwater robotics, motion planning, and real-time autonomy. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of South Carolina and has held research roles at NATO’s CMRE and SINTEF Ocean. His work focuses on enabling robust underwater navigation in dynamic marine environments, with over 20 publications in leading robotics venues and more than 500 citations. An Associate Editor for ICRA and active mentor of graduate students, he also leads projects such as EchoNav and collaborates with academic and industry partners worldwide, including NTNU, McGill, Texas A&M, Woods Hole, and Eelume AS.

Edwin Meriaux

Phd Student, University of McGill

Website: linkedin.com/in/edwin-meriaux

Bio: He is a second-year Phd student at both McGill and Université Paris-Saclay CentraleSupélec supervised by Professor Gregory Dudek (McGill) and Dr. Antonio Loria (Université Paris-Saclay CentraleSupélec). His research focus is on the deployment of multi-agent systems in unknown and GPS denied spaces. His work is both in the aquatic for and aerial domains.

Shuo "Steve" Wen

MSc Student, University of McGill

Website: linkedin.com/in/shuowen

Bio: Shuo "Steve" Wen is a second-year Master's student in Computer Science at McGill University, supervised by Professors Gregory Dudek and Doina Precup. He also completed his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science at McGill. His research focuses on Generative Reinforcement Learning for robotics control.

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