CARIS MOSES

Caris Moses is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) with a focus in robotics at MIT. She works in the Learning and Intelligent Systems Lab under Professors Leslie Kaelbling and Tomás Lozano-Pérez. Her research focuses on understanding how autonomous robots can leverage vision (i.e. their sensor data) while performing dexterous manipulation tasks that require some physical understanding of the world. This could involve manipulating a constrained mechanism (e.g. a door), or stacking objects such that they remain stable. She is also a GEM Fellow and a former Draper Fellow. Caris received her Masters of Science in Computer Science from Northeastern University in partnership with Draper Labs, where she worked with Professor Rob Platt and Dr. Rahul Chipalkatty on task and motion planning with aerial vehicles. She received her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University where she worked with Professor Ephrahim Garcia on bio-inspired robotic limbs. She has a passion for STEM education in underrepresented communities and has volunteered with organizations such as Black Girls Code, Saturday Engineering Enrichment and Discovery (SEED) Academy and the Women’s Technology Program. She is also involved in efforts to make EECS and MIT as a whole a more diverse and inclusive environment by serving on the MLK Luncheon Planning Committee, the Student Advisory Group to the Committee for Diversity Equity and Inclusion in EECS, and mentoring students interested in graduate school.

• Tiwari, R., Meller, M. A., Wajcs, K. B., Moses, C., Reveles, I., & Garcia, E. (2012), “Hydraulic artificial muscles”, Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23(3), 301-312. (Journal Article)
• Moses, C., Noseworthy, M., Kaelbling, L.P., Lozano-Pérez, T., Roy, N. (2020), “Visual Prediction of Priors for Articulated Object Interaction”, ICRA. (Conference Paper)
• Moses, C. M., Chipalkatty, R., Platt, R. (2016), “Belief Space Hierarchical Planning in the Now for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”, AIAA Infotech@Aerospace. (Conference Paper)
• “Visual Prediction of Priors for Articulated Object Interaction”, ICRA 2020
• “Visual Prediction of Priors for Articulated Object Interaction”, Honda Annual Program Review, 2019
• “Peg Insertion with Policy Search”, Google Student Research Summit, 2017
• “Policy Search for Robotics Application”, iAAMCS, 2017
• “Belief Space Hierarchical Planning in the Now for UAVs”, AIAA@ Aerospace Conference, 2016
• “Localization and Reference Tracking in Mobile Robots”, UC San Diego Summer Research Conference, 2012
• “A Quasi-Static Model for Artificial Muscles”, Region 1NE AIAA Student Conference, 2012

• MIT Jerome Lemelson Fellowship (2016)
• Draper Fellowship (2016, 2014)
• National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Sciences (GEM) Fellowship (2016, 2014)
• Engineering Learning Initiative Undergraduate Research Award (2011)
• Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Scholar (2011)
• General Motors Minority Engineering and Science Scholar (2010)
• Cornell University John McMullen Dean Award (2009)