I am an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. My research focuses on theoretical and foundational advancements enabling the design of competent, autonomous systems that co-exist with humans, empower them, and are socially, ethically, and economically beneficial. The research problems I am interested in include task-oriented knowledge acquisition and reasoning, online learning and control, human-robot interaction, trustworthy artificial intelligence, and socially and ethically beneficial autonomy.

If you are a student interested in working with me, please send an email to me, including a description of why you are interested in my research and your relevant experiences.

I completed my Ph.D. in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin, supervised by Prof. Ufuk Topcu. My Ph.D. research focuses on developing theory and algorithms that enable autonomous agents to co-exist with humans in our complex world. The algorithms I develop address the following fundamental challenges:

• Active identification and gathering of actionable information from large-scale, multi-modal, and noisy data.
• Planning and learning based on partial and evolving knowledge, in real time and with theoretical performance guarantees.
• Interacting and collaborating with humans in a trustworthy manner.

I tackle these challenges by drawing innovative connections between the fields of control, learning, formal methods, and information theory. My contributions enable efficient and reliable integration of autonomy in various applications such as robotics, shared autonomy, and networked systems. Prior to Ph.D., I received my B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2014, and my M.S.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, USA, in 2017.

Research Interests

• Artificial Intelligence
• Control Systems
• Formal Methods
• Robotics