Kostas Bekris

Associate Professor

Email:

Phone:

848 445-8854

Office:

CBIM Room 9

Website:

Personal Website

CV:

Teaching:

Introduction To Artificial Intelligence

Research Area:

Robotics

Artificial Intelligence

Animation & Simulation

Scientific Society Membership:

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

Address:

Computer Science

Rutgers University

110 Frelinghuysen Road

Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA

Biography:

I work in robotics, where I am designing and experimenting with algorithms for planning and coordinating the motion of robots. Applications include autonomous robots and co-robots deployed:

in semi-structured environments, especially manipulators in warehouses and factories,
for field robotics applications, such as space exploration with novel robotic platforms; and
for personal assistance in human environments.

This work also applies to simulating realistic and interactive crowds in the context of transportation, smart city challenges as well as computer games. You can find more information in research group's website: "Pracsys Lab".

I completed my PhD degree at Rice University in Computer Science under the supervision of Prof. Lydia Kavraki in 2008. The title of my Ph.D. thesis was "Informed Planning and Safe Distributed Replanning under Physical Constraints". I then joined the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno as an Assistant Professor. In 2012 I moved to Rutgers University and joined the Computer Science department. Since July 2016, I am an Associate Professor in the same department. I am originally from Greece, where I received a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Crete.

Awards & Distinctions:

Early CARREER Faculty award by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 2015-2018
Nomination for Best Paper and Best Student Paper award at the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) conference, July 2015.
Best Teacher Award from the Computer Science Graduate Student Society of Rutgers University, May 2015.
Best Reviewer Award, ``Robotics: Science and Systems'' (RSS) conference, July 2014.
Nomination for Best Medical Robotics Paper award at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) that took place in Minneapolis, MN, 2012.
Leadership in Ethical Science award by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) for the development of a navigation system for blind people based on smartphone technology, 2012.
Best Student Paper award at the First International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination (ROBOCOMM), 2007.

Grant Awards:

RI:Small: Taming Combinatorial Challenges in Multi-Object Manipulation

PI: Kostas Bekris | Co-PI: Jingjin Yu | NSF

09/01/2016 to 08/31/2019

$468,500

Early CAREER Faculty Award: Robust Planning for Dynamic Tensegrity Structures

PI: Kostas Bekris | NASA

10/01/2015 to 09/30/2018

$600,000

BSF:2012166: A Framework for Composite Techniques in Motion Planning

PI: Kostas Bekris | NSF

10/01/2013 to 09/30/2017