Advancing AI & Robotics for the Human World

RAIL Lab at Georgia Tech focuses on developing human-centered robotic and AI systems that can better assist and interact with humans in various contexts, from in-home to healthcare. Through interdisciplinary research combining robotics, AI, and human factors, we aim to create effective and transparent technologies that seamlessly integrate into everyday lives.

Current RAIL Lab Members. More info and alums here.

Sonia Chernova
Sonia Chernova

Sonia Chernova

Faculty

Maithili Patel
Maithili Patel

Maithili Patel

Robo PhD

Kartik Ramachandruni
Kartik Ramachandruni

Kartik Ramachandruni

Robo PhD

Niharika Mathur
Niharika Mathur

Niharika Mathur

HCC PhD

Ethan Schneider
Ethan Schneider

Ethan Schneider

Robo PhD

Nadira Mahamane
Nadira Mahamane

Nadira Mahamane

Robo PhD

Alexander Karpekov
Alexander Karpekov

Alexander Karpekov

CS PhD

Sanjana Menon
Sanjana Menon

Sanjana Menon

Robo MS

Harsh Muriki
Harsh Muriki

Harsh Muriki

CS MS

Abivishaq Balasubramanian
Abivishaq Balasubramanian

Abivishaq Balasubramanian

Robo MS

Twisha Shah
Twisha Shah

Twisha Shah

ECE MS

Nhi Nguyen Ngoc Yen
Nhi Nguyen Ngoc Yen

Nhi Nguyen Ngoc Yen

Robo MS

Muskan Bawa
Muskan Bawa

Muskan Bawa

Robo MS

Rahul Rustagi
Rahul Rustagi

Rahul Rustagi

ECE MS

Aesha Shah
Aesha Shah

Aesha Shah

CS BS

Hannah Hsiao
Hannah Hsiao

Hannah Hsiao

CS BS

News

February 2025

The upcoming CHI 2025 workshop, "Technology Mediated Caregiving For Older Adults Aging in Place," will be chaired by Niharika Mathur.

January 2025

Niharika Mathur presented at ACM GROUP 2025 conference and won best poster award!

November 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Kantwon Rogers who successfully defended his dissertation!

September 2024

Ethan Schneider’s paper, "CE-MRS Contrastive Explanations for Multi-Robot Systems," has been accepted for publication in RA-L!

August 2024

Alex Karpekov joined the lab as a Ph.D. student!

Featured Projects

MIT Robotics Seminar

MIT Robotics '24
HCAI ROBO

Sonia Chernova presented "Algorithmic Design of Proactive and Interpretable Home Robots" at MIT Robotics in September 2024

Team: Sonia Chernova

Contrastive Explanations for Multi-Robot Systems

IROS '24
MULTI ROBO XAI

CE-MRS: Contrastive Explanations for Multi-Robot Systems

Team: Ethan Schneider, Daniel Wu, Devleena Das, Sonia Chernova

UHTP: Communication-Free Mutually-Adaptive Human-Robot Collaboration

ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction '24
ROBO HCAI

UHTP: A User-Aware Hierarchical Task Planning Framework for Communication-Free, Mutually-Adaptive Human-Robot Collaboration

Team: Kartik Ramachandruni, Cassandra Kent, Sonia Chernova

StructDiffusion: Semantic 6D Rearrangement from Language Specification

RSS '23
ROBO XAI

StructDiffusion: Language-Guided Creation of Physically-Valid Structures using Unseen Objects

Team: Weiyu Liu, Yilun Du, Tucker Hermans, Sonia Chernova, Chris Paxton

Routine Object Usage Predictions for Proactive Robot Assistance

CoRL '23
ROBO HCAI

Predicting Routine Object Usage for Proactive Robot Assistance

Team: Maithili Patel, Aswin Prakash, Sonia Chernova

ConSOR: Context-Guided Personalized Object Rearrangement

IROS '23
HCAI ROBO

ConSOR: A Context-Aware Semantic Object Rearrangement Framework for Partially Arranged Scenes

Team: Kartik Ramachandruni, Max Zuo, Sonia Chernova

Semantic Reasoning Frameworks: Survey

RAS '23
HCAI ROBO

A Survey of Semantic Reasoning Frameworks for Robotic Systems.

Team: Weiyu Liu, Angel Daruna, Maithili Patel, Kartik Ramachandruni, Sonia Chernova

Subgoal-Based Explanations

IUI '23
HCAI XAI

Subgoal-Based Explanations for Unreliable Intelligent Decision Support Systems

Team: Devleena Das, Been Kim, Sonia Chernova

Proactive Robot Assistance

CoRL '22
ROBO HCAI

Proactive Robot Assistance via Spatio-Temporal Object Modeling

Team: Maithili Patel, Sonia Chernova

Lab Members

Current Members

Sonia Chernova

Sonia Chernova

Faculty

Maithili Patel

Maithili Patel

Robo PhD

Kartik Ramachandruni

Kartik Ramachandruni

Robo PhD

Niharika Mathur

Niharika Mathur

HCC PhD

Ethan Schneider

Ethan Schneider

Robo PhD

Nadira Mahamane

Nadira Mahamane

Robo PhD

Alexander Karpekov

Alexander Karpekov

CS PhD

Sanjana Menon

Sanjana Menon

Robo MS

Harsh Muriki

Harsh Muriki

CS MS

Abivishaq Balasubramanian

Abivishaq Balasubramanian

Robo MS

Twisha Shah

Twisha Shah

ECE MS

Nhi Nguyen Ngoc Yen

Nhi Nguyen Ngoc Yen

Robo MS

Muskan Bawa

Muskan Bawa

Robo MS

Rahul Rustagi

Rahul Rustagi

ECE MS

Aesha Shah

Aesha Shah

CS BS

Hannah Hsiao

Hannah Hsiao

CS BS

Lab Alumni

Zhi Tan

Zhi Tan

Postdoc, 2023

→ Professor @ Northeastern University

Harish Ravichandar

Harish Ravichandar

Postdoc, 2019

→ Professor @ Georgia Tech

Kantwon Rogers

Kantwon Rogers

PhD, 2024

→ Postdoc @ MIT Media Lab

Joanne Truong

Joanne Truong

PhD, 2024

→ Research Scientist @ FAIR LAB

Jennifer Molnar

Jennifer Molnar

PhD, 2024

→ Consultant @ Exponent

Devleena Das

Devleena Das

PhD, 2023

→ AI @ AMD

Jack Kolb

Jack Kolb

PhD, 2022

Weiyu Liu

Weiyu Liu

PhD, 2022

→ Postdoc @ Stanford

Angel Daruna

Angel Daruna

PhD, 2022

→ Researcher @ SRI International

Siddhartha Banerjee

Siddhartha Banerjee

PhD, 2021

→ Lead Engineer @ Diligent Robotics

Lakshmi Nair

Lakshmi Nair

PhD, 2020

→ ML Scientist @ Lightmatter

Asif Rana

Asif Rana

PhD, 2020

→ Applied Scientist @ Amazon

Cassandra Kent

Cassandra Kent

PhD, 2020

→ Postdoc @ University of Pennsylvania

Kalesha Bullard

Kalesha Bullard

PhD, 2019

→ Research Scientist @ DeepMind

Vivian Chu

Vivian Chu

PhD, 2017

→ Diligent Robotics Co-Founder

Russell Toris

Russell Toris

PhD, 2016

→ Director of Robotics @ Fetch Robotics

Halit Bener Suay

Halit Bener Suay

PhD, 2016

→ Robotics engineer @ National Robotics Engineer Center

Adrian Boteanu

Adrian Boteanu

PhD, 2015

→ Applied Scientist @ Amazon

Teaching

Current Courses

CS 3630: Introduction to Robotics and Perception

Spring 2025

Course covering robot capabilities, kinematics, control architectures, sensor-based navigation, and Python-based robotics.

Upcoming Courses

CS 7633: Human-Robot Interaction

Fall 2025

Graduate course covering human-robot interaction and social robot learning, focusing on physical embodiment, multi-modal interfaces, human-robot teamwork, social cognition, and ethical considerations, culminating in a final project.

Fun & Outreach

Beyond cutting-edge research, RAIL Lab actively engages with our local community. From showcasing candy-distributing robots during Halloween to teaching robotics to local students, we're passionate about making technology accessible and exciting. Our lab members also enjoy regular social activities like hiking and rock climbing. Check out some of our recent activities below!

Bridge Up

Bridge Up

Annual in Spring

Bridge Up, co-organized by Georgia Tech’s RAIL Lab, is an eight-week program empowering young women to explore coding, robotics, and machine learning. Participants are tutored and mentored by RAIL Lab students, with a focus on machine learning concepts and hands-on group projects in convolutional neural networks.

Atlanta Science Festival

Atlanta Science Festival

Annual in Spring

As a part of the Atlanta Science Festival, we introduce kids to robotics. We showcase our robots, organize interactive demos and talk about the cool research we do.

Robo-Halloween

Robo-Halloween

Every October

Annual Halloween event where we dress up our robots in spooky costumes and program them to interact with kids and give out candy. Traditionally, RAIL Lab members all dress up and go around a local neighborhood in Atlanta to give out candy.

Climbing

Climbing

Weekly

Monthly rock climbing sessions where lab members bond over conquering walls and boulders. We discuss research ideas, solve problems, and build team spirit while getting some exercise. Sometimes we even bring our small robots to attempt some climbs!

Hiking

Hiking

Every couple months, weather permitting

When the weather decides to get better, we find time for a hike. We take a break from normal lives and enjoy the beautiful outdoors around Atlanta.