Joining the Aggie Autonomous Robotics Research Group

Joining the Aggie Autonomous Robotics Research Group

I am always looking for motivated students, both undergraduates and graduate students, to join my research group. I appreciate your interest in potentially joining us. This page has some advice on how to get started.

Our Research

In general, nearly all of the research we do is focused on algorithms to make robots work autonomously in the world. This can range from very theoretical to very practical work.

You can learn a bit about what our research involves from this list of our papers, especially those from the last few years. Even if the technical details aren't fully clear, having some idea about the general "flavor" of what we do will make it easier to figure out if your interests and skills are a good fit. For prospective graduate students and postdocs, it is particularly helpful to browse our prior work prior to contacting me.

Graduate Admissions

You can find some information about our admissions process on the webpage for our graduate programs.

For PhD applicants, admissions and funding decisions are made by committee based on feedback from individual professors. Thus, I cannot admit any student directly. Within the application for our Ph.D. program, you should indicate which faculty you are interested in working with; mentioning my name will help to ensure that I see the completed application and can voice my opinion to the committee.

For masters applicants, admissions decisions are made by committee. I am not involved in those decisions, so contacting me in advance of being accepted to the department will not be helpful.

Form Letters

Many prospective graduate students and visitors seem to send identical or nearly-identical emails to large numbers of professors. This approach tends to be ineffective. I get too many of these emails to reply to each one. I'm more likely to respond to messages that show a genuine, specific interest in our research, beyond just keywords or pasted paper titles.

Assistantships

For PhD applicants, decisions about admission and financial support are made simultaneously. In most years, nearly all admitted PhD students will receive offers of financial support in the form of a teaching assistantship, a research assistantship, or a fellowship. No separate application is necessary.

Though a number of masters students are awarded assistantships during the course of their study, these tend to be awarded on a term-by-term basis based on availability. My group can offer research assistships to master's students only rarely, usually to students that I know well already.

I do not have the authority to directly offer teaching assistantships to anyone, even for the courses that I am teaching. These decisions are made at the department level.

Interns and Visitors

I am happy to welcome in-person visitors and interns from other universities if there is some strong overlap in our research interests. Unfortunately, I cannot offer any financial support for this kind of arrangement, nor am I able to host fully remote "virtual" interns.

Postdocs

The group occasionally has funding to hire postdoctoral reseachers. In those cases, the position will be advertised broadly. I am also happy to work with postdocs that have both independent funding and research interests close enough to mine that I would be able to provide useful mentoring.

Group Meetings

My research group holds weekly in-person group meetings throughout the fall and spring semesters. Each meeting features a discussion of current research progress by the group members and a group discussion about the next steps for that research. Anyone at Texas A&M who is interested learning more about what our group does is welcome to attend these meetings. Send me email for date and time of the next meeting. If you are inquiring near the start of a semester, it's quite likely that we are still sorting out the meeting schedule, so it can be helpful to include your schedule of classes and other commitments.

Take a Class from Me

Taking a class from me — either a formal course or an independent study — is one of the best ways to find out if there is good match between our interests and personalities. Many of the most successful students that have come through my lab have started as students in one of my classes.

Talk to Me

I am happy to talk with anyone about what we are doing and how you might be able to get involved.