Sanne van Waveren

Pronounciation of my first name

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology. I work on safe human-robot interaction in the Cognitive Optimization and Relational (CORE) Robotics lab headed by Dr. Matthew Gombolay.

Prior to joining Georgia Tech, I received my PhD on correcting robot behavior using non-expert feedback at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. During my PhD, I also had the opportunity to spent three months at the TBD Lab, Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA).

My vision is a future where interactive robots operate seamlessly in human environments. My research develops methods that use human feedback and formal techniques, grounded in logic and mathematics, to enable robots to adapt their behavior autonomously and reliably.

For an up-to-date list of my papers see my Google Scholar page.

latest news

Jul 16, 2024 :sparkles: Excited to participate as a mentor in the Inclusion@R:SS initiative.
Jun 20, 2024 :sparkles: It was a pleasure to host AI 4 Black Kids, a non-profit with the mission to empower and elevate Black youth through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning while promoting ethical and responsible use of these technologies.
Jun 5, 2024 :page_facing_up: Our comprehensive review on Interactive and Explainable Robot Learning is out.
May 1, 2024 :car: Book chapter published titled “Autonomous Vehicles: A Technical Introduction” on the design and operation of self-driving vehicles, together with Chris Pek (TU Delft). Editors: Hans Steege, Ilaria Amelia Caggiano, Maria Cristina Gaeta, Benjamin von Bodungen.
Mar 23, 2024 :robot: We are thrilled to announce the R:SS’24 Workshop on Safety and Normative Behaviors in Human-Robot Interaction, which will be held as a full-day workshop on July 15 2024, co-located with R:SS’24. More information can be found here: workshop’s website
Mar 23, 2024 :robot: R:SS’24 Workshop on Robot Execution Failures and Failure Management Strategies will be held as a full-day workshop on July 15 2024, co-located with R:SS’24! More information can be found via this link to our workshop’s website
Dec 22, 2023 :page_facing_up: Paper Accepted at HRI 2024: Enhancing Safety in Learning from Demonstration Algorithms via Control Barrier Function Shielding. Letian Chen will present this work in Boulder on Tuesday, March 12 in Session 1.E: Learning. Read more
Dec 21, 2023 :page_facing_up: Paper Accepted at AAMAS 2024: Mixed-Initiative Human-Robot Teaming under Suboptimality with Online Bayesian Adaptation Read more
Oct 17, 2023 :page_facing_up: Paper Accepted at OOD Workshop @ CoRL 2023: Generalized Behavior Learning from Diverse Demonstrations Read more
Aug 28, 2023 :round_pushpin: I was named a Rising Star in EECS. I look forward to meeting the cohort here in Atlanta and learn about the faculty search process. :sparkles:

selected publications

  1. Mixed-Initiative Human-Robot Teaming under Suboptimality with Online Bayesian Adaptation
    Natarajan, Manisha, Xue, Chunyue,  van Waveren, Sanne, Feigh, Karen, and Gombolay, Matthew
    In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems 2024
  2. Enhancing Safety in Learning from Demonstration Algorithms via Control Barrier Function Shielding
    Yang, Yue*, Chen, Letian*, Zaidi, Zulfiqar*,  van Waveren, Sanne, Krishna, Arjun, and Gombolay, Matthew
    In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2024
  3. Increasing perceived safety in motion planning for human-drone interaction
    Van Waveren, Sanne, Rudling, Rasmus, Leite, Iolanda, Jensfelt, Patric, and Pek, Christian
    In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2023
  4. Correct Me If I’m Wrong: Using Non-Experts to Repair Reinforcement Learning Policies
    Van Waveren, Sanne, Pek, Christian, Tumova, Jana, and Leite, Iolanda
    In Proceedings of the 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2022
  5. Encoding Human Driving Styles in Motion Planning for Autonomous Vehicles
    Karlsson, Jesper*,  van Waveren, Sanne*, Pek, Christian, Torre, Ilaria, Leite, Iolanda, and Tumova, Jana
    In ICRA International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2021
  6. Behavioural responses to robot conversational failures
    Kontogiorgos, Dimosthenis, Pereira, Andre, Sahindal, Boran,  van Waveren, Sanne, and Gustafson, Joakim
    In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2020
  7. Gesticulator: A framework for semantically-aware speech-driven gesture generation [Best Paper Award:trophy:]
    Kucherenko, Taras, Jonell, Patrik,  van Waveren, Sanne, Henter, Gustav Eje, Alexandersson, Simon, Leite, Iolanda, and Kjellström, Hedvig
    In Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction 2020