Pragathi Praveena

🚀 I will be starting as an Assistant Professor in Information Sciences and Technology at George Mason University in January 2027.

I am a group-centered AI and robotics researcher. My research draws on human-computer interaction, human-robot interaction, and group dynamics to design interactive and (often) embodied AI systems for groups. Here is a 2-minute overview of my research.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Robotics Institute, CMU where I contribute to the NSF AI-CARING Institute. I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UW–Madison, where I was part of the People and Robots Lab. I have been recognized as an MIT EECS Rising Star, as well as an HRI Pioneer and RSS Pioneer.

Prior to graduate school, I worked for two years as a Junior Research Scientist at the Xerox Research Center India, where I developed algorithms to monitor a person’s breathing using webcams (see video). I hold a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

My work has been published in top-tier venues in robotics and HCI, including HRI, ICRA, IROS, CSCW, UIST, and DIS.

Dissertation | Towards Effective Robotic Groupware

CSCW | Periscope: A Robotic Camera System to Support Remote Physical Collaboration

CHI LBW | Exploring the Use of Collaborative Robots in Cinematography

DIS | REX: Designing User-centered Repair and Explanations to Address Robot Failures

UIST | NarraGuide: an LLM-based Narrative Mobile Robot for Remote Place Exploration

HRI | Understanding Control Frames in Multi-Camera Robot Telemanipulation

HRI 🏅 | Supporting Perception of Weight through Motion-induced Sensory Conflicts in Robot Teleoperation

HRI | Characterization of Input Methods for Human-to-robot Demonstrations

ICRA | User-Guided Offline Synthesis of Robot Arm Motion from 6-DoF Paths

ICRA | RangedIK: An Optimization-Based Robot Motion Generation Method for Ranged-Goal Tasks