Who am I
My work lies at the intersection of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Human-Robot Interaction with the goal of developing robot technologies that enable close, natural, and extended cooperation with humans. I aim at lowering the barriers to entry for humans to naturally interact with robots, and in doing so I design human-aware robot systems that are able to work with and around people. To me, the engineering is as important as the science: I make robots work, and I hold a deep commitment to doing so while implementing scalable, robust, and elegant systems.
- 16 years’ research experience in Humanoid Robotics, Human-Robot Interaction and Artificial Intelligence.
- Director of the Human Interaction and RObotics [HIRO] Group at CU Boulder, where I lead a team of ~20 graduate and undergraduate students to perform state-of-the-art research. Proven ability to manage multiple projects and supervise multiple people while meeting challenging deadlines.
- Chief Technology Officer of Lab0, a stealth startup operating in the logistics and supply chain industry.
- Extensive background in kinematics, optimization, robot control, decision making, planning under uncertainty, calibration, tactile sensing, machine learning, 2D and 2D computer vision, IMU processing.
- Mastery of C++, with a deep knowledge of the ROS and YARP middlewares. Daily experience with the iCub humanoid and the Baxter collaborative robot.
- Strong presentation/communication skills thanks to experience in giving both technical and non-technical talks to both small and big groups, tailoring to the audience. Presented to major international robotics conferences, as well as several outreach events, ranging from exhibitions and fairs, to live TV shows and various interviews.
- Proven track record in writing technical reports as well as scientific papers. Authored and co-authored numerous international peer-reviewed scientific articles and journals. Extensive experience with research grant writing and awarding.
Summary
Alessandro Roncone received his B.Sc. summa cum laude in Biomedical Engineering in February 2008, and his M.Sc. summa cum laude in NeuroEngineering in July 2011 from the Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy. In April 2015 he completed his Ph.D. in Robotics, Cognition and Interaction Technologies from Università degli studi di Genova and Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), working in the Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the iCub Facility departments under the supervision of prof. Giorgio Metta. The goal of his Ph.D. project was to exploit insights from the neurosciences in order to improve the sensorimotor capabilities of the iCub humanoid robot. From 2015 to 2018, he worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Social Robotics Lab in Yale University under the supervision of prof. Brian Scassellati (a.k.a. Scaz), where he focused on human robot collaboration and advanced manufacturing. In Fall 2018, he became faculty in the Computer Science Department of University of Colorado Boulder, where he directs the Human Interaction and RObotics [HIRO] Group.
Professional Experience
Jan. 2022 - present
Portland, OR USA and Genoa, Italy
Chief Technology Officer
Lab0, https://www.lab0.com
Lab0 is a stealth startup operating in the logistics and supply chain industry. We are fast growing and hiring at all levels---please reach out if you are interested! Our motto: Industrial autonomy at global scale.
Aug. 2018 - present
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO USA
Assistant Professor
Computer Science Department, University of Colorado Boulder
At CU Boulder, I lead the Human Interaction and RObotics Group [HIRO], where we perform state-of-the-art research in the field. We work at the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence and control to develop intuitive, human-centered technologies for the next generation of robot workers, assistants and collaborators.
Nov. 2015 - Jul. 2018
Yale University, New Haven, CT USA
Post-Doc @ Yale University
Social Robotics Lab, Computer Science Department, Yale University
My research at Yale University focused on task and motion planning for human-robot collaboration. I worked on systems that: i) provide effective support to the human when she needs it the most; ii) learn complex hierarchical representations from single instructions; iii) proactively ask questions and provide contextual information to query and share internal states and intents.
Jan. - Oct. 2015
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova IT
Post-Doc @ iCub Facility
I worked on implementing a model of peripersonal space on the iCub robot, focusing on: i) rich body representations, and ii) distributed motor control via whole-body awareness. I also worked on optimization-based approaches to inverse kinematics and robot control: my gaze stabilization and control framework formally solved the problem of controlling a binocular head to gaze toward an arbitrary 3D point in space, and concurrently exploiting redundancy to stabilize gaze.
Nov. 2011 - Dec. 2014
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova IT
Ph.D. Fellow @ iCub Facility
Life and Humanoid Technologies
Doctoral course in Robotics, Cognition and Interaction Technologies. See the `Education` section below for details about my Ph.D. project. I have been involved in the Xperience FP7-ICT-270273 and WYSIWYD FP7-ICT-61239 projects, funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Program with a funding of €7,634,000 and €4,583,016 respectively.
Oct. 2010 - Jul. 2011
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova IT
Research Fellow @ RBCS (Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Science)
I have worked at the Italian Institute of Technology during my MSc thesis. See the `Education` section below for details about my master thesis.
Education
2012 - 2015
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova IT
Ph.D. in Life and Humanoid Technologies [Thesis PDF]
Thesis title `Expanding sensorimotor capabilities of humanoid robots through multisensory integration. A study on the implementation of peripersonal space on the iCub.`
Supervisors: Giorgio Metta, Luciano Fadiga, Ugo Pattacini, Matej Hoffmann.
2008 - 2011
Università degli studi di Genova, IT
M.Sc. with honors in NeuroEngineering
Thesis title `Visuo-Haptic Integration for Object Characterization in an Unstructured Environment`
Supervisors: Matteo Fumagalli, Francesco Nori.
2005 - 2009
Università degli studi di Genova, IT
B.Sc. with honors in Biomedical Engineering
Thesis title `Support Vector Machine Analysis applied to a Manipulator in a Non-Structured Environment`
Supervisors: Luca Pulina, Lorenzo Natale, Armando Tacchella.
Student (with scholarship) at ISICT
Successfully selected for scholarship---only three positions available out of hundreds of candidates.
Publications
2024
2023
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems [AAMAS]
London, Uk, May 28-June 02
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI]
Stockholm, Sweden, March 13-16
6th International Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed-Reality for Human-Robot Interactions (VAM-HRI)
Stockholm, Sweden, March 13
Workshop on Language-Based AI Agent Interaction with Children [AIAIC]
Los Angeles, USA, February 21
2022
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Kyoto, Japan, October 23-27
IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication
Naples, Italy, August 29
Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Conversational AI @ ACL 2022
Dublin, Ireland, May 27
IEEE Robotics Automation and Letters [RA-L] + ICRA
Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A., May 23-27
Frontiers in Robotics and AI
MIT Press
Introduction to Autonomous Robots: Mechanisms, Sensors, Actuators, and Algorithms
Nikolaus Correll, Bradley Hayes, Christoffer Heckman and Alessandro Roncone
Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
Elsevier
2021
IROS 2021 Workshop on Impact-Aware Robotics
Prague, Czech Republic, October 1
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Prague, Czech Republic, September 27-October 1
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Prague, Czech Republic, September 27-October 1
Proceedings of the 2021 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
Online and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, November 2021
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics
Online, August 1-6
4th Workshop on Proximity Perception in Robotics at IROS 2021
Prague, Czech Republic, September 27
University of Colorado Boulder
Boulder, CO, U.S.A.
Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning as Applied to Autonomous Systems
Guohui Ding
PhD dissertation
ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI], Workshop on Robots for Learning
Boulder, CO, U.S.A., March 12
2020
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A. October 25-29
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems [AAMAS]
Auckland, New Zealand, May 9-13
2019
2nd ICRA International Workshop on Computational Models of Affordance in Robotics
Montreal, Canada, May 20-24
An Affordance-based Action Planner for On-line and Concurrent Human-Robot Collaborative Assembly
Francesca Stramandinoli, Alessandro Roncone, Olivier Mangin, Francesco Nori, and Brian Scassellati
2018
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Madrid, Spain, October 1-5
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Madrid, Spain, October 1-5
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Madrid, Spain, October 1-5
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems [AAMAS]
Stockholm, Sweden, July 11-13
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction [HRI]
Chicago, IL, U.S.A., March 5-8
2017
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA]
Singapore, Singapore May 29-June 3
AAAI Matters
2016
International Conference on Social Robotics [ICSR]
Kansas City, MO, U.S.A., November 1-3
PLOS ONE
Robotics: Science and Systems [RSS]
Ann Arbor, MI, U.S.A., June 18-22
2015
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems [IROS]
Hamburg, Germany, September 28-October 2
Ph.D. Thesis
University of Genoa and Italian Institute of Technology
2014
IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots
Madrid, Spain, November 18-20
IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots
Madrid, Spain, November 18-20
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation [ICRA]
Hong Kong, China, May 31-June 7
Automatic kinematic chain calibration using artificial skin: self-touch in the iCub humanoid robot [PDF] [BIB]
Alessandro Roncone, Matej Hoffmann, Ugo Pattacini, and Giorgio Metta
It was featured in the IEEE Spectrum Video Friday!
Research, Teaching & Service
Grants
- 2022 - Co-PI - Collaboration with University of California San Diego, title the co-evolution of Human-AI Adaptation, 3 years, $1.5M, Army Research Laboratory (ARL).
- 2021 - PI - Co-PI Bradley Hayes, title Policy Learning for Optimal Teaming via TF-Conditioned Metalearning (PLOT-Meta), 5 years, $2M, Army Research Laboratory (ARL).
- 2021 - PI - Strengthening Teamwork for Robust Operations in Novel Groups (STRONG), 1 year, $100k, Army Research Laboratory (ARL).
- 2021 - PI, IRT Seed grant - Joint project with Tiera Tanskley, with title Towards equitable robot tutoring: an intersectional analysis of human-robot interaction in racially diverse classrooms, 1 year, $15k.
- 2020 - Co-Director, Engineering Education and AI-Augmented Learning IRT - one of six College-sponsored Interdisciplinary Research Themes. Our IRT is focused on developing a community and research capacity around a new science at the intersection of AI-augmented learning and K16 education research, $250k.
- 2020 - Co-PI, NSF Institute on Student-AI Teaming - 5 years, $20M.
- 2019 - PI, Research and Innovation Office [RIO] seed grant - with Jianliang Xiao and Emiliano Dall’Anese, title Programmable and reconfigurable soft robots for symbiotic soft/rigid robotic systems, 1 year, $50k.
Teaching
- CSCI 7000 Physical Human-Robot Interaction (Spring 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021)
- CSCI 3302 Introduction to Robotics (Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022)
- CSCI 7000 Deep Reinforcement Learning and Robotics (Summer 2020, Fall 2022)
Invited Talks
- 2021 - Samsung AI NYC - https://research.samsung.com/aicenter_ny
- 2021 - International Conference of Advanced Robotics [ICAR 2021] - Workshop on Design, Learning, and Control for Safe Human-Robot Collaboration.
- 2019 - Colorado School of Mines - Title: Robots working with and around people..
- 2017 - iCub Facility, Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, IT - Title: Robots, inequality, and you.
- 2017 - Computation and Cognitive Development Lab, Yale University, New Haven, CT - Title: Humans, Robots, and everything in between.
- 2016 - International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR16), Kansas City, MO, November 1-3 - Workshop on Synthetic Method in Social Robotics.
- 2015-2016 - Yale University, New Haven, CT - Two guest lectures at the CPSC 472 Intelligent Robotics course.
External Service
- 2019-2021 - St. Vrain Valley School District [SVVSD, serving 37000 students in K-12] - Educational Advisor for Artificial Intelligence Education.
- 2019-2020 - IEEE Denver Computer, Information Theory and Robotics Society [CIR] - Vice Chair and Educational Advisor.
Associate Editor / Program Committee member
- IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
- ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
- International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
Reviewer
- IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO)
- IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
- IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
- ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)
- ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (T-HRI)
- Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)
- Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS)
- Frontiers in NeuroRobotics
- Frontiers in Robotics and AI
- IEEE/RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)
- International Journal of Humanoid Robotics
- IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-Epirob)
- IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob)
- IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN)
- IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO)
2017
Robotics Lab
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
International Ph.D. Thesis Reviewer
External reviewer for the Ph.D. thesis of Raúl Pérula-Martínez, graduated from the Robotics Lab in Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in 2017.
2015
CBMM 2015 Summer School
Woods Hole, MA, August 13-September 3
Teaching Assistant at the BMM - MIT Summer School
Alessandro Roncone, Carlo Ciliberto, Giulia Pasquale and Raffaello Camoriano
Teaching assistant at the 2015 CBMM Summer School, organized by a number of MIT lab groups and affiliates. I focused on tutoring students during their projects with the iCub. A notable achievement has been the integration of Google Glass onto the YARP framework, that has been later used in order to perform head/gaze teleoperation on the iCub.
2014
IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics
Genoa, Italy, October 13-16
Co-organizer of the Development of body representations in humans and robots workshop
Matej Hoffmann, Alessandro Roncone, Lorenzo Jamone, and Beata Grzyb
Half-day workshop @ICDL-EPIROB 2014 Conference. The goal of the workshop was to explore the possibility of robots developing models inspired by the mechanisms of human body representations. In this way, they can on one hand become new modeling tools for empirical sciences - expanding the domain of computational modeling by anchoring it to the physical environment and a physical body. On the other hand, robot controllers endowed with multimodal whole-body awareness and plasticity typical of humans should give rise to - in robotics unprecedented - autonomy, robustness, and resilience.
2014
International conference on Infant Studies
Berlin, Germany, July 3-5
Modeling the development of body knowledge using humanoid robots
Matej Hoffmann, Alessandro Roncone, Giorgio Metta
Oral presentation at the International Conference on Infant Studies on my work related to the double-touch (made by Matej Hoffmann).
2013
SMLC - Workshop on Synthetic Modeling of Life and Cognition
Bergamo, Italy, September 12-14
Modeling the development of human body representations
Matej Hoffmann, Alessandro Roncone
Invited to give an oral presentation at the workshop on Synthetic Modeling of Life and Cognition.
2013-2014
IIT (Italian Institute of Technology)
iCub Facility
Researcher of the week
I have been researcher of the week for two times. Despite its name, this award is given very rarely to outstanding research performed in the iCub Facility at IIT. In the past years, only 8 of these awards have been awarded.
Graphic Design
FlatWoken Icons
My second icon pack capitalized on the experience I gained while working on the AwOken project, and was a much more refined long-shadow set.
AwOken Icons
My most awarded and recognized graphics projects. It has been downloaded more than a million times in less than one year, and has been for a while the most downloaded icon set on Linux. Ever.
Jul. - Oct. 2013
Coop la Lucerna
Icon Designer in Outsourcing
Coop la Lucerna is a farm right in the middle of Pianura Padana, IT. During the process of restructuring their online offerings, they contacted me in order to implemented a set of icons for their website. The icons were a set of 20 vegetables, rendered in a flat and minimal look.
Oct. - Dec. 2011
Magor Corp.
Icon Designer in Outsourcing
I have been contacted in order to design a new set of icons for their tele-collaboration software (a Skype-like alternative oriented toward telepresence and teleconference). I designed a total of 30 icons.
Feb. - Mar. 2010
The Castle Project
Icon Designer in Outsourcing
I implemented a set of icons for their website. It was a non-profit organization based in Edinburgh aimed toward taking care of drug- and alcohol- addicts, so I had some fun in designing some drug-related icons.
Skills and Technical Expertise
The following is a list of my so-called skills, i.e. a set of progress bars that have little meaning and are totally subjective. They fall short in depicting who I really am, but they are a fair rundown of my practical talents nonetheless.
Robots & Platforms:
Robotics & AI:
Programming:
OS/Software:
Languages:
Sports:
This CV has been auto-magically generated from the correspondent page on my personal website. For this reason, there may be some formatting problems here and there. Compilation Date: May 17, 2024