The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) named Deepak Pathak part of the 2022 class of DARPA Risers. Each year the agency selects a cohort of outstanding early career researchers to be recognized for their work and participate in a symposium. 

Pathak, an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science and member of the Robotics Institute and Machine Learning Department, works in artificial intelligence at the intersection of computer vision, machine learning and robotics. He is looking forward to talking with others who do fundamental research and getting feedback from a wide community.

"The research goal of our group is building robotic agents that can perceive, understand and act in the world the way humans do," Pathak said. "We borrow ideas from developmental psychology and motor development to see how those principles can guide us in building real world robotic agents. It will be interesting to hear from researchers from different areas."

DARPA also named Max Murphy, a postdoctoral associate and biomedical engineer who works in the NeuroMechatronics Lab, to the class. That group brings together neuroscientists and engineers to develop new strategies and devices to treat neurological disorders. Murphy will present on brain-computer interface work.

Murphy and Pathak will both present their work at a DARPA Forward symposium in October.