Welcome

I’m a first year PhD student in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, advised by Prof. Karthik Desingh, and Prof. Stephen J. Guy. I did my master’s in Robotics at the Minnesota Robotics Institute (MnRI), researching robotic perception and manipulation with Prof. Karthik Desingh at the Robotics Perception and Manipulation Lab, where we explore how robots can perceive, reason about, and interact with objects in human environments.

During my Bachelor’s study in Mechanical Engineering at the Vellore Institute of Technology, I co-founded a independent robotics team “I-bax,” where we worked on projects that bridged hardware with intelligent systems. From building low-cost CNC and 3D printers to developing perception-based control systems and assistive devices, I gained hands-on experience in autonomy and interdisciplinary design through both academic and self-driven initiatives.

My research interests lie in robot manipulation, robotic perception, robots in human-centered environments. I’m particularly interested on:

• Learning from Human Demonstrations: Developing methods for robots to generalize and adapt manipulation skills from human demonstrations.
• Robotic Perception and Manipulation: Integrating robotic systems with perception capabilities to enable robots to interact effectively with human environments.
• Human-Robot Collaboration: Creating robots that can collaborate with humans by adapting to feedback and improving their task execution through continuous learning.

Please feel free to reach me at chand861 [at] umn [dot] edu