This website is archival and out of date! Please see https://wbthomason.github.io/ instead!

I will be joining the Kavraki Lab at Rice University as a postdoc funded by the 2021 CIFellows postdoctoral fellowship in January 2022.

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. I work with Professor Hadas Kress-Gazit on combining symbolic and geometric planning. Specifically, I’m interested in improving the efficiency, robustness, and utility of robot task and motion planning.

Though I primarily research robot planning, I’m also interested in ML and formal methods for robotics, robotics research broadly, and programming languages. I am graciously funded by the NDSEG Fellowship.

Research

I work on combining symbolic and geometric planning, often referred to as “integrated task and motion planning”. My work explores approaches to task and motion planning that provide high performance and robustness to action failure with lightweight domain-specific assumptions. I also research approaches to improved planning effort reuse through abstract plan representation and fusions of classical planning with modern machine learning for more efficient, automatic planning and execution.

For more about my research, please see my publication and presentation list.

News

• I will be helping to organize RSS Pioneers 2021 as a member of the Faculty Committee (July, 2020)
• I was accepted to the 2020 RSS Pioneers workshop (33.7% acceptance rate, April 2020)
• My paper with Ross Knepper, “A Unified Sampling-Based Approach to Integrated Task and Motion Planning” was accepted to ISRR 2019. (July 2019)
• I passed my A Exam, presenting on “An Efficient, Flexible Sampling-Based Approach to Integrated Task and Motion Planning”. I’m now a PhD candidate. (June 2019)
• My workshop paper with Ross Knepper, “A Flexible Sampling-Based Approach to Task and Motion Planning”, will be presented at RSS 2019 in the Robust Task and Motion Planning workshop. (June 2019)
• My paper with Christoforos Mavrogiannis and Ross Knepper, “Social Momentum: A Framework for Legible Navigation in Dynamic Multi-Agent Environments”, was accepted to HRI 2018 (November 2017)
• I presented my workshop paper “Exploiting Heterogeneity in Robot Teams Through a Formalism of Capabilities” at RSS 2017 in the workshop on Heterogeneity and Diversity for Resilience in Multi-Robot Systems (July 2017)
• I was awarded the NDSEG Fellowship (April 2017)
• I was awarded the NSF GRFP Fellowship (March 2017)
• I presented my paper “Zero-Shot Learning for Unfamiliar Gesture Recognition” at ISER 2016 (October 2016)
• I presented my workshop paper “Recognizing Unfamiliar Gestures for Human-Robot Interaction through Zero-Shot Learning” at RSS 2016 in the 2nd Workshop on Model Learning for Human-Robot Communication (June 2016)
• My paper “Zero-Shot Learning for Unfamiliar Gesture Recognition” was accepted to ISER 2016 (May 2016)

Service and Outreach

• I am a faculty chair for RSS Pioneers 2021, helping to recruit invited speakers and design the program for the workshop
• I have served as a reviewer for AURO, Black in AI (2017-2020), ICRA (2016, 2019-2021), IJCAI 2021, IROS 2017, MRS 2019, RA-L (2021), RSS (2019), SIMPAR (2018), T-ASE (2020), and WAFR (2018).
• I was a mentor for Black in AI, providing assistance and advice to my mentee on his Ph.D. program application process. (Fall 2019 - Spring 2020)
• I have helped review extended abstracts for the Black in AI workshop. (Fall 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020)
• I have taught 7th and 8th grade girls about state machines and programming at Cornell’s Expanding your Horizons conference. (Spring 2016, 2017, and 2018)

Teaching

• TA for Foundations of Robotics, Cornell University, Professor Ross Knepper (Fall 2016 and Fall 2017)
• Head TA for Introduction to Computing Using Python, Cornell University, Professor Walker White (Fall 2015)
• TA for a multitude of undergraduate courses at UVa {Program and Data Representation, Operating Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Programming Languages} (Fall 2013 to Spring 2015)

Departmental Service

• In 2020, I served on the CS department Anti-Racism Task Force, assisting in making a statement and set of plans for improvements to departmental culture and policy around diversity and inclusion, as well as participating in the hiring process for the CS Director of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• From 2016 through 2019, I organized the Cornell CS department colloquium czars
• From 2016 through 2018, I coordinated the Cornell CS PhD mentor program