Agenda

Friday, September 25 at UVA Link Lab

 (10:00am - 5:00pm)

Research Day

Directions - Link Lab (Parking in designated lot)

Engineering School Map

10:00am – 10:30am Arrival & Coffee
10:30am – 11:00am Welcome Remarks
11:00am - 11:45am Keynote Address
  • David Luebke, Vice President of Graphics Research, NVIDIA
    • Title: Lessons in Industrial Research: Graphics, VR, AI, and the Pursuit of New Experiences
    • Abstract: Twenty years ago I left UVA to help found a new long-term research group at a little-known (but ambitious) company called NVIDIA. Since then, I've led research initiatives ranging from computer graphics algorithms and hardware, to display technology and human perception, to generative AI and media forensics. We have written award-winning papers, recruited amazing researchers, and transferred research to game-changing products - and along the way I've made mistakes, placed wrong bets, wasted time and resources, and abandoned research directions over and over. In this talk I'll use anecdotes from research efforts in graphics, virtual reality, and generative AI to illustrate some lessons from two decades of industrial research: lessons on picking research problems, on carrying out research, and on owning research outcomes. Ultimately, these lessons have crystalized into a coherent vision for research that can impact the company: creating "new experiences" that drive demand for NVIDIA products, from ray traced games to VR displays to more humanistic AI.  From this vision I’ll motivate some current and future directions in AI research. 
11:45am – 12:30pm Faculty Flash Talks
12:30pm – 1:15pm Lunch Break
1:15pm - 2:00 Panel Discussion: Physical AI

Moderator: Nicola Bezzo, Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Link Lab, UVA

2:00pm – 2:45pm Student Flash Talks
2:45pm – 4:00pm Lab Tours/Coffee Break
  • Learning & Interactive Robotics Lab - Rice Hall - Room 232
    • Professor Yen-Ling Kuo’s lab focuses on building intelligent robotic/embodied systems that can interact and assist humans in the physical world (no matter in the homes or on the roads) effectively, safely, and adaptively. They explore the intersection of AI/machine learning, robotics, and cognitive science to build robots that learn and interact with humans. In the lab tour, we will demonstrate these ideas in our robotic manipulation system,  low-cost tactile-force-controlled gripper, and language-controlled autonomous driving. Student Research Demonstrators: Xuhui Kang, Yan Zhuang, Pei-Chi Chen, Yufeng Gao
  • Omni-Reality & Cognition Lab (ORCL)  - Thornton Hall - Room D107
    • Professor T. Donna Chen and Professor Arsalan Heydarian's lab is a state-of-the-art virtual and augmented reality research lab that explores how people perceive, interact with, and respond to immersive digital environments. ORCL combines advanced computing systems, wireless VR headsets, haptic feedback technologies, physiological sensing devices, and interactive simulation platforms. During the tour, visitors will experience demos exploring a digital twin of downtown Charlottesville while navigating as either a cyclist, or pedestrian, providing a firsthand look at how researchers use immersive technologies to better understand human movement, perception, and interaction within complex environments. Student Research Demonstrators: Arman Hosseini, Zeyang Zheng
  • Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) - Rice Hall - Room 028
    • Professor Nicola Bezzo's lab is a state-of-the-art research facility dedicated to the development, prototyping, and autonomous control of mobile robotic systems. The laboratory is designed to support high-fidelity experimentation, validation, and large-scale demonstrations involving a diverse range of ground and aerial robotic platforms. The AMR Lab houses a fleet of more than 100 robotic systems, including a quadruped, mobile manipulators, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), equipped with diverse sensing, manipulation, and mobility capabilities to enable research across a broad spectrum of autonomous robotics applications. Student Research Demonstrators: Lainey Gordon, Jonathan Reasoner, Patrick Sherman, Woosung Kim, Billy Smith
  • Collaborative Robotics Lab - Rice Hall - Room 024
    • Professor Tariq Iqbal's Collaborative Robotics Lab is interested in building robotic systems capable of working alongside people in complex human environments, such as factories, hospitals, and classrooms. For a robot to successfully work in these settings, it must have the capabilities to perceive and predict the intentions of people around it and use that knowledge to determine when, where, and how to act. We develop artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning approaches to tackle these complex problems. Student Research Demonstrators: Sujan Sarker, Shaid Hasan, Xinyu Chen, Young Suh Hong
  • AI for Medical Electronics (AIME) - Mechanical Engineering Hall - Room 105
    • Professor Xun Zhao's laboratory integrates mechanical engineering, intelligent sensing, and medical diagnostics to develop smart devices for early disease screening. Using an in-vitro cardiovascular phantom built on a bench-top mock circulatory loop, we reproduce the early signatures of conditions such as hemorrhagic shock and design intelligent implantable sensors to model and detect disease at its onset. We are also developing a robotic-arm system that combines ultrasound imaging with smart sensing patches to automatically locate patients and perform automated ultrasound and skin cancer screening with clinically valid results. Student Research Demonstrators: Tianyi Wang, Minghao Liu, Xueyi Zhang, Liana Jimenez
  • Chandra Robot Autonomy Lab (CRΔL) Rice Hall - Room 226
    • Professor Rohan Chandra’s lab advances research at the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-centered autonomy. The lab focuses on mobility and autonomy challenges in multi-robot and human-robot systems, developing human-like autonomy (HLA) that enables robots to operate effectively in complex, open-world environments. This work includes enabling robots to generalize beyond predefined scenarios, understand and reason about human intent, and perform agile, adaptive control in dynamic and underactuated settings. As part of the lab tour, attendees will have the opportunity to experience a live demonstration of a humanoid robot and learn how cutting-edge advances in robotics are shaping the future of human-robot collaboration. Student Research Demonstrators: Aneesh Chavan, Jeffrey Chen, Vignesh Rajagopal
  • Accelerated Materials Discovery Lab Wilsdorf Hall - Room A013
    • Professor W. Streit Cunningham’s lab is focused on applying automated and high-throughput methodologies to discover and develop novel materials for extreme environments (high mechanical stresses, temperatures, and radiation fluxes). They utilize procedures derived from ‘self-driving labs’ to guide a microstructural optimization loop through combinatorial synthesis approaches (typically thin film sputtering), microstructural modification by ion irradiation or annealing, and high-throughput characterization, which includes a number of techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron microscopy, small-scale mechanical testing, and thermal analysis (ultrafast nanocalorimetry). Student Research Demonstrators: Jack Hallett and Nico Fonseca Alva
4:00pm - 5:00pm Student Poster Session & Closing Reception at Historical Montebello
 
Walking Directions to Montebello from Link Lab

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