Indian American researcher wins NSF award for human-like robot learning
Sanjiban Choudhury, an Indian American robotics researcher, has received the prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award. The $400,000 grant will fund his work on robots that learn skills in ways similar to humans, aiming to make them more adaptable for everyday tasks in homes, healthcare, and agriculture.
Choudhury earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He later completed his MA and PhD at Carnegie Mellon University before conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Washington.
His research specializes in reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and foundation models for robotics, planning, and code generation. Currently, he leads the Portal group, which develops robots designed for ordinary users, focusing on making them practical, accessible, and capable of handling complex real-world jobs.
The NSF award will support his latest project, where robots learn by observing humans, practicing tasks, and refining their performance through feedback. Beyond technical advancements, the initiative includes educational outreach for K-12 students to encourage interest in STEM and robotics research.
Choudhury is one of only two computer science researchers to receive the 2024 NSF CAREER Award, alongside Shagufta Mehnaz at Penn State University and Bryan Kim at Syracuse University. The award recognizes early-career faculty who demonstrate potential as academic leaders and innovators in their fields.
The funding will help Choudhury advance robotics technology while fostering education in STEM. His work could lead to more capable and user-friendly robots for everyday applications, inspiring the next generation of researchers in robotics and artificial intelligence.
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