Pragathi Praveena

👋🏼 I am interested in human-robot interaction and collaborative systems. I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University where I contribute to the NSF AI-CARING Institute. I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was part of the People and Robots Lab.

My research explores the intersection of HRI and CSCW, with a focus on developing novel interactive systems that facilitate human-to-human communication and collaboration. My dissertation work was on Robotic Groupware. My favorite paper from my Ph.D. journey is on the Periscope robotic camera system (see 1-minute teaser🎉), which facilitates remote collaboration on physical tasks between two people. My second favorite paper explored the use of collaborative robot arms in cinematography.

Prior to joining graduate school, I was a junior research scientist for two years at Xerox Research Center India where I built algorithms for monitoring a person’s breathing using webcams (see video). I have a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.