Vehicle Autonomy and Intelligence Lab

First position: President, PQ Robotics (startup)

Paul joined the lab in summer 2023. He has been dedicated on development across aerial and autonomous vehicle systems, under mentorship of PhD student Durgakant Pushp. As an undergrad, Paul also participated in three autonomous racing competitions.

First position: Data Scientist 2 at TGS

Anooshka joined the lab in fall 2024. She has been dedicated on data analysis and agentic AI systems for the autonomous racing project and created useful tools for our team.

First position: Software Engineer at Radix Metasystems

Austin joined the lab in summer 2025. He has been working with his PhD mentor Shaekh Shithil for UAV system design and control. Before the UAV project, he also worked on our autonomous racing project.

First position: Critical Mass

Saeoul worked on UI/UX design for our autonomy software in our autonomous racing project. She obtained her Master's degree in May 2025 and joined as a Senior Experience Designer in Critical Mass, a client of Apple.

First position: COMAC

Lingchuan worked on UI/UX and livery design for our racecar. She obtained her Master's degree in May 2025 and joined as a Process Engineer in Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China.

First position: Zeus Solutions Inc

Divya worked on deep learning and imitation learning with visual data for robot navigation and autonomous racing. She obtained her Master's degree in May 2025.

Current position: PhD student at IU

Paul worked on perception with camaras, radars as well as their important applications on various autonomous systems during 2024 and 2025. Paul worked in NSWC Crane before being a student at IU.

First position: Helix Wireless

Charan obtained his Master's degree from Data Science at IU. He contributed on web and interface design for our autonomous racing project.

First position: Raytheon

Samantha worked on image segmentation for robot navigation and autonomous racing with his PhD mentor Md. Al-Masrur Khan. She had did internship in General Motors during her undergrad study.

Current position: Anduril Industries

Abe worked on autonomous navigation in unstructured environment, with his PhD mentor Mahmoud Ali. He published a 1st authored ICRA paper before he obtained his Bachalor degree in Spring 2024.

First position: Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)

Michael worked on planning and navigation of autonomous surface vehicles, with his PhD mentors Weizhe Chen and Paul Coen. He obtained his Accelerated Master's degree in Spring 2024.

First position: Imagine Learning

Pragat worked with his PhD mentor Zheng Chen on generation of pixel-accurate semantic label maps from images acquired from a high-fidelity simulator, where the generated dataset is used for UGV autonomous driving.

First position: Palantir Technologies

Andrew worked on autonomous exploration of unknown environment with his PhD mentor Durgakant Pushp. He obtained his Bachalor degree in Spring 2024.

First position: OKSI

AJ worked on imitation learning applicable to UGV maneuver with his PhD mentor Junhong Xu. He obtained his Accelerated Master degree in Winter 2023.

First position: Mount Sinai

Nick joined the lab in Fall 2022 and obtained his Master's degree in Summer 2023. He worked on reinforcement learning applicable to UGV maneuver with his PhD mentor Ihab Mohamed.

First position: Research Software Developer at IU

Deepak joined the lab in Fall 2022. He worked on semantic map completion that can be used for navigating autonomous vehicles.

First position: NSWC-Crane

As a receipient of DoD SMART Scholarship, Adam's research interest has been the development and control of autonomous underwater vehicles, for both hardware and software. Adam obtained his Master degree in Spring 2023.

First position: Technology Consulting, DC

Mary was a receipient of Indiana LSAMP Scholarship. She worked with her PhD mentor Durgakant Pushp on UAVs for assessing dangerous scenarios by differentiating the aggressor from the victims using deep learning in image recognition technology.

First position: Amazon

Manuja worked on a project of designing hardware and software systems of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) since Fall 2019 and graduated with a Master degree in Spring 2021. She joined Amazon in Seattle after graduation.

First position: Bytedance

Shreyas worked on a project of designing hardware and software systems of an AUV since Fall 2019 and graduated with a Master degree in Spring 2021. Together with Manuja, Shreyas has led and mentored a few undergraduate students working on the AUV projects.

First position: Metron (Unmanned Systems Division)

Sam joined the lab in Fall 2019 and graduated with a Master degree in Fall 2020. Sam worked on decision-theoretic planning and integrated his background in Physics with robotics decision making.

First position: PhD student in Indiana University

Malintha's research project is to control a team of small aerial vehicles. His work combines high-level swarm coordination mechanisms (e.g., behaviors inspired from bird flocking) with low-level trajectory control.

First position: General Motors (as software engineer)

As an undergrad, Kristopher worked on building an autonomous underwater vehicle. Kristopher obtained his undergrad dgree from Indiana University.

First position: Uber (as machine learning engineer)

Rushabh worked on ground vehicle planning and learning with his research mentor Junhong Xu. Rushabh obtained his Masters' dgree from Indiana University.

First position: Unity (as computer vision/machine learning engineer)

Jay worked on data-driven planning with his research mentor Weizhe Chen. Jay got his Masters' dgree from Indiana University.

First position: Boeing (as robotics engineering intern)

As a senior undergraduate student at Indiana University, Gabrielle helped graduate students for research tasks such as robot design and control in VAIL.

First position: National Security Innovation Network (as X-Force program intern)

As a senior undergraduate student at Indiana University, Paula finished two robotics term projects with ground vehicles in VAIL.

First position: IU graduate student (Accelerated Master of Science in Information Systems)

As an undergrad, Isaiah worked on navigation of a ground robot. He was supported by NSF Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program.

First position: IBM

Nawaz worked on small quadrotor swarm control. Nawaz got his Masters' dgree from Indiana University.

First position: IU graduate student (Accelerated Master of Science in Information Systems)

As an undergrad, Jamon worked on navigation of a ground robot. He was supported by NSF Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program.

First position: Qualcomm

Danial worked on autonomous maneuvers of micro drones and tested Crazyflie 2.0. Danial got his Masters' dgree from Indiana University.

First position: AutoX (self-driving car startup)

Yezhen worked on robotic environmental exploration and mapping, especially the underwater environment. Yezhen got his Masters' dgree from University of Southern California and his BS from the University of Science and Technology of China.

First position: Microsoft (Natural Language Processing group)

Chen worked on Deep Reinforcement Learning that allows marine robot to effectively act under ocean dynamics. Chen got his Masters' dgree from USC and his BS from Tsinghua University.

First position: Nvidia (Robotics group)

Shoubhik worked on Decision-theoretic Planning and Reinforcement Learning. Shoubhik got his Masters' dgree from USC and his BE from Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi.

First position: Brain Corp (self-driving vehicles)

Kai-Cheih worked on Robotics, informative planning, and environmental sensing and monitoring. Kai-Chieh got his Masters' dgree from University of Southern California and BS from National Taiwan University.

First position: Iterable (as machine learning engineer)

Steven worked on web development for the 2017 Southern California Robotics Symposium. Steven got his Masters' dgree from USC and his BS from UCLA.

First position: TuSimple (self-driving truck startup)

Zhibei worked on the Traveling Salesman Problem, as well as the multi-robot coordination. Zhibei got his Masters' dgree from USC and BS from Fudan University.

First position: Google

Hesen worked on Markov Decision Processes and stochastic shortest paths. Hesen got his Masters' dgree from USC and BEng from University of Liverpool.