30+ Years Advancing Robotics, Artificial Intelligence , Generative AI & Engineering
A distinguished academic, researcher, and industry veteran with over three decades of experience driving innovation at premier global institutions. From hands-on engineering in heavy industry to pioneering research at Carnegie Mellon University, EPFL, and IIIT-Allahabad, my career spans physical systems, intelligent robotics, and software research. Today, I continue to collaborate on next-generation frontiers in Generative AI, Physical AI, and Human-Robot Interaction. More specifically I help them Building Intelligent Machines that Can Understand, Imagine, Reason and Collaborate with us!
Academic & Research Leadership
Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad | Duration: 25 years( 2001-2026).
Role: Professor & Senior Faculty (Retired) | Duration: 25 Years ( including 9 years as the Dean of academic affairs and 2 years as the director of the institute).
Focus: Led major research initiatives, supervised doctoral scholars, and developed advanced curricula in AI, robotics, and intelligent systems.
Role: Dean of Academic Affairs | Duration: 9 years
Focus: To establish a stimulating academic environment and provide strategic leadership in designing state-of-the-art Computer Science and Engineering Program—enabling the institute to excel nationally and secure a position among the top 10 institutions in India (ranked 7th in 2007).
Role: Director of the Institute | Duration : 2 years (Served in two separate stints)
Led institutional strategic direction during a critical phase of academic growth and structural transition.
Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA
Role: Visiting Research Scholar | Duration: 2010 – 2011
Focus: Advanced software architectures for autonomous systems and intelligent agent frameworks.
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA
Role: Visiting Research Scientist | Duration: 1994-1995
Focus: Cutting-edge robotics research, spatial intelligence, and field-robotics architectures.
EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), Switzerland
Role: Visiting Research Scientist | Duration: Summer Appointments (2007 – 2014)
Focus: Collaborative European research programs in advanced hyper redundant robotics and computational systems.
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT / ISM), Dhanbad
Role: Faculty Member | Duration: 2.5 Years
Focus: Taught core engineering curricula including AI course in CSE department and led departmental research efforts in Robotics and AI.
National Institute of Technology (NIT), Durgapur
Role: Faculty Member | Duration: 10 Years
Focus: Foundational research in Robotics and AI ( introduced and taught Robotics and AI related courses in the institute).
International Fellowships & Research Appointments
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Hong Kong
Role: Visiting Research Fellow | Duration: 1997 – 1998
Focus: Intelligent control systems and sensor-driven automation.
USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Role: Research Scholar / Scientist (under Indo-Russian Govt. Scholarship program) | Duration: 3.7 Years
Focus: Fundamental computational research and applied mechanics applied in Controlling the Equilibrium of Vertical Wall Climbing Robot.
Industrial Foundations at the beginning of the professional career.
Steel Manufacturing Sector | 6 Months
Operational exposure to large-scale metallurgical processes, structural mechanics, and plant-level systems.
Premier Automobile Industry | 1 Year
Practical engineering experience in vehicular systems, assembly automation, and quality control.
List of selected Invited talks delivered/participated in National/International Conferences and other academic outreach activities :
September, 1997, The MAE Department, The Chinese University at Hong Kong. On Single wheel Gyroscopically stabilized robot-GYROVER.
SPIE’s International Symposium on Sensor Fusion: Architecture & Algorithm 18-20 April, 2001, Orlando, USA and presented a paper titled “Development of a sensor integration strategy for robotic application based on geometric optimization”.
July, 2004, The Institute for the Problems in Mechanics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.Russia, Issues on biped locomotion control and its applications for human prosthesis.
July, 2007, School of Computer Science, Biologically Inspired Robotics Group, EPFL University, Switzerland, On CPG based control of bipedal Robots.
Delivered a five lecture series during 2007-2009, at ALIMCO (Artificial Limb Manufacturing Corporation), Kanpur during the Technology Development of AMAL (Adaptive Modular Active Leg).
IEEE/RSJ conference (IROS-2008), September 22-28, 2008, at Nice, France presented a paper "Biologically Inspired CPG based above knee active prosthesis"
September, 2008, DST-PAC (Department of Science and Technology, A Govt. Of India funding Agency, Program Advisory Committee) meeting, IIT, Kharagpur, India, on Biologically Inspired CPG controlled prosthesis design.
April, 2010, IIT, Bombay during annual Tech- Festival of Mechanical Engineering Department, on Robotic Control System Design under Reactive Paradigm.
November, 2010, Computer Science and Engineering department, SUNY, Buffalo, USA, on Effective Human-Robot- Interactions.
May, 2011, Computer Science and Engineering Department , OHIO State University, USA on biped locomotion of Humanoid robot
September 18, 2011, Delivered an invited lecture under the banner of ACM, IIIT-A Chapter on Human- Robot Interactions with special reference to Push Recovery.
July 5-7, 2012, Delivered an invited lecture on "Human Robot Interactions:issues and future challenges" in an International Workshop on "Advances in Robotics" at IIT,Delhi
Delivered a Keynote lecture on "Future Trends on Development of Intelligent Robots" in the International Conference on "Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing" AISC - 2012 from 7-9 December 2012, organized by IIT, BHU, Varanasi.
Delivered a talk on Biped Locomotion Control with reference to Push Recovery of Humanoid Robots at the 6th India-Korea Joint Workshop on Robotics, October 30-31, 2013, Juju, The republic of Korea.
Delivered an invited talk on Locomotion Control of Biped Humanoids, IIT, Indore, 16th December, 2013.
Delivered a talk on Neuro- Fuzzy computing at Bharat Electrionics Limited , Ghaziabad, New Delhi, October 18, 2014.
Took active part in deliberation of lecture on ICRA-2015 Workshop of IEEE RAS Chairpersons, May 26-30, 2015, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Delivered Key note address on “Challenges of bringing Humanoid Robots in a real world environment” in the UPCON-2015, December 4-6, 2015, IIIT-Allahabad.
Invited by Microsoft Research India to join a select group of academicians in representing India at the Faculty Summit at Redmond, WA USA, July 13-16, 2016.
Delivered Key note lecture on "Biped Locomotion- Challenges and Issues" at the second SERB School on Robotics, organized during 14th to 19 th November 2016 at IIT, Madras.
Delivered a Key note lecture on "Robotics-State of the Art" at the IEEE International Conference on Advances in Mechanical, Industrial, Automation and Management Systems ( AMIAMS-2017), February 3-5, 2017. MNNIT, Allahabad, India
Delivered a talk on Robotics Research as going on at IIIT-Allahabad, National Institute of Technical Teacher Training and Research, February 20, 2017.
Delivered an invited talk on Robotics on March 8, 2017, at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Lucknow to inaugurate TSC's DRONE DIKSHA initiative on webnair with more than 1600 participants on the web and near about 100 in house participants.
Delivered a keynote lecture on Human -Robot Interactions on March 17, 2017 in IEEE Computer Society of India Symposium (CSIS) 2017.
Delivered a talk titled " Solving biped locomotion challenges using Computational Theoretic Approach" in Indo-Korea joint workshop on Robotics, March 22-23, 2017, IIT Delhi.
Delivered a talk on "Big data Analytics in Robotics" at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka on a Big Data Workshop organized by Faculty of Engineering, from December 13-15, 2017.
Participated as a panel speaker in STS forum 3rd INDIA – JAPAN Workshop in Delhi on February 28 2018.
Delivered a keynote speech on Advances of Machine Learning in Robotics during the inaugural function of Advances in Computing Technology (ACT-2018 Faculty Development Program Technically sponsored by TEQIP-III) on March 12, 2018 at MMM University of Technology, Gorakhpur, UP,India.
Delivered Expert Lecture on "Machine Intelligence and Robot Vision" during the Faculty Development Program (FDP) on Machine Learning and Computer Vision(MLCV-2018) Sponsored by WB-TEQIP III, KNIT, sultanpur, UP, India, 9th April -13th April, 2018.
Invited by the URV University, Tarragona, Spain to act as a Jury for a doctoral thesis examination committee, May 21-25, 2018.
Attended 14th IEEE International Conference on Control and Automation (ICCA-2018) conducted during June12-15, 2018 at Anchorage, Alaska , USA , presented a paper and chaired a session on Robotics-II.
Delivered a Keynote Address on "Influence of Machine Intelligence on solving classical Robotics Problems", in IEEE UPCONN-2018 on November 4th at MMM University, Gorakhpur, India.
Delivered a keynote address in the “2nd International Conference on Advanced Computing and Software Engineering (ICACSE-2019)” on February 09,2019, KNIT Sultanpur.India
Participated as a panel speaker in STS forum 4th INDIA – JAPAN Workshop in Delhi on Wednesday, February 27 2019.
Delivered a Keynote address on Friday, 5th April, 2019 on "Machine Learning Applications in Robotics" in IIT,Kanpur, The Robotics Society of India and IEEE RAS sponsored Winter School on Robotics and Autonomous Systems.
Delivered a key note lecture on May 7, 2019 at Barcelona, Spain on "Robotics in the Era of Machine Learning" during International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, organized during May 7th , 2019 at Barcelona and May 8th, 2019 at Madrid, Spain.
Delivered keynote lecture and took part in panel discussion on May 8th, 2019 at Madrid, Spain , on Civil Law Rules on Robotics under the backdrop of European Parliament resolution of 16 February 2017 with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics, on the occasion of International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, organized during May 7th , 2019 at Barcelona and May 8th, 2019 at Madrid, Spain.
Attended renowned International Conference, CVPR- 2019, June 16-19, 2019, Long Beach, CA, USA.
Delivered an expert lecture on December 14, 2019 on Uncertainty handling using Bayes' theorem and Dempster-Shafer theorem, in the Faculty development program on "Artificial Intelligence" organized by MNNIT, Allahabad, INDIA during Decembe 10-14, 2019.
Delivered an invited technical talk on "Robotics Research in the Machine Learning and Deep Learning Paradigm" organized by the Computer Science and Engineering Department of NIT, Hamirpur in assiciation with the IEEE Computer Society - Delhi Chapter (INDIA) on 17th December, 2019.
Delivered two expert lectures on Machine Learning in the Faculty Development Program on "Recent Trends in AI and Mobile Systems (RTAIMS-2019)", organized by the Computer Science and Engineering Department of NIT Hamirpur (HP), INDIA during 16-21 December, 2019.
Delivered a Keynote Lecture on "Robotics and Machine Intelligence" during Two-Day Workshop on Robotics and Machine Intelligence held at Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, INDIA during 2-3 January, 2020 jointly sponsored by the Center of Intelligent Robotics, IIIT-A and IEEE-RAS UP Section Chapter.
Delivered a Planary Talk on "Solving Intelligent Robot Grasping Problem in the Deep Learning Paradigm" at ICEECS-2020, organized during January 10-11, 2020 at VBS Purvanchal University, Jaunpur, UP, INDIA.
Attended IEEE CVPR 2020 ( online mode) and presented poster "Robotic Grasp Detection By Learning Representation in a Vector Quantized Manifold" , with my students Priya Shukla, Mridul Mahajan, Tryambak Bhattacharjee, Arya Krishnan, WiCV IEEE CVPR 2020, June 16-18, 2020, Seattle, USA.
Deliverd a special lecture ( two hour duration) on Machine Learning , Deep Learning and Robotics during Online training and certification course on AI and ML conducted by Defence Institute of Advanced Technology(DU), PUNE September 1-7, 2020.
Delivered an invited talk on 24th September, 2020: "On Solving Basic Robotics Problems using Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques", during Short term training program cum workshop on"Intelligent Biomedical-Micro-Electro-Mechanical System", held from 22nd September, 2020 to 28th September, 2020 at the Indian Institute of Information Technology-Allahabad (IIIT-A), Prayagraj. UP-211015.
Delivered Expert Lecture on "Machine Learning for IoT", on 10-12-2020, during the Faculty Development Program on the Internet of Things, held at IIIT Allahabad from 7th December 2020 to 11th December 2020 sponsored by AICTE, ATAL Academy.
Delivered Expert Lecture on "Artificial Intelligence Applications", in the training program on “Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning" at MANIT Bhopal, 17th May, 2021.
Delivered an Invited Talk on " Generative Models, Chat GPT and its application in Human Robot Interactions", CSE department of IIT-BHU, November 2, 2022.
Delivered two plenary talks on Deep Learning and Human Robot Interactions , at International workshop on Human Robot Interactions Nov 24-26, 2022, Organized by the Center for Intelligent Robotics (CIR), IIIT-Allahabad.
Delivered an Invited Talk on Human-Aware Robot navigation in warehouses, US NSF-TIH Workshop, May 12, 2023 , Baltimore, USA.
Delivered an Invited Talk on Effective Human-Robot Interactions within the LMM Paradigm, September 21, 2023, Danial Felix Ritchie School of Engineering & Computer Science, University of Denver, USA
Delivered an Invited Lecture on Generative AI and Language conditioned Human Robot Interactions, 17th January, 2024, IIT Bombay, Mumbai.
Delivered an Invited Talk on Agentic AI and its application on Intelligent robot grasping, 19th January, 2024, DIAT, Pune.
Delivered two plenary talks, one on Generative AI and Cognitive Planning and another one on Intelligent Robot Grasping at Fourth International workshop on Generative AI and Human Robot Interactions, organized by the CIR, IIIT-Allahabad, Feb 16-18, 2024.
Delivered a plenary talk on Generative AI and Human Robot Interactions at the Fifth International workshop on Generative AI and Human Robot Interactions, organized by the CIR, IIIT-Allahabad, Feb 14-16, 2025.
Delivered two Keynote addresses on the main theme of the 6th International workshop on generative AI and Human Robot Interactions, organized by the CIR, IIIT-Allahabad during Jan 23-25, 2026.
Organized, Grand Project workshop on Human Robot Interaction under TIH-I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics, on 25 th January, 2026 and presented the success report of the project as the nationwide Grand Project Coordinator.
Delivered an invited talk on Generative AI and Human Robot Interactions, on 20th February, 2026, IIT-Madras.
Delivered an invited Talk on Agentic AI and Cognitive Robotics, CS department, BITS Pilani Goa campus, 10th April 2026.
Delivered an invited Talk on Generative AI and its application in Robotics and Autonomous Car, College of Engineering, Pune (COEP), April, 30, 2026.
Current Focus & Future Directions
Active Engagements in Generative AI & Physical AI
Having retired from full-time administrative duties at IIIT-Allahabad, I remain active in high-impact research, academic advising, and collaborative projects. My current focus centers on:
• Physical AI: Embodied intelligence, spatial computing, and real-world execution.
• Generative AI for Autonomous Systems: Model-driven decision-making and synthesized behaviors in robotics.
• Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Adaptive, safe, and intuitive interfaces between humans and intelligent physical agents.
Currently leading research in the area of Generative Physical AI and Robotics with 10 research students and one German Collaborator