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Somil Bansal

Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and of Computer Science

Education

  • 2020, Doctoral Degree, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California - Berkeley
  • 2014, Master's Degree, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California - Berkeley
  • 2012, Bachelor's Degree, Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur

Biography

Somil Bansal is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He received the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) from the University of California at Berkeley in 2020. Before that, he obtained a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Between August 2020 and August 2021, he spent a year as a Research Scientist at Waymo (formerly known as Google Self-Driving Car project). He has collaborated closely with companies like Skydio, Google, Waymo, Boeing, as well as NASA Ames. Somil has received several awards, most notably the NSF CAREER award, the Eli Jury Award at UC Berkeley for his doctoral research, the outstanding graduate student instructor award at UC Berkeley, and the academic excellence award at IIT Kanpur.

Research Summary

Somil is broadly interested in robotics and autonomous systems. Specifically, his research focuses on understanding how machine learning methods can be combined with classical, model-based planning and control methods with the goal of (a) enabling robots to make intelligent decisions in a data-efficient manner, especially when they rely on perception and vision sensors; and, (b) assuring robot safety while it relies on learning for decision-making.

Research keywords: robotics; safe learning; learning and control; robot perception; dynamics and control.

Awards

  • 2022 NSF CAREER Award
  • 2020 Eli Jury Award, Department of EECS, UC Berkeley
  • 2019 RSS Pioneer
  • 2019 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, UC Berkeley
  • 2011 Academic Excellence Award, IIT Kanpur
Appointments
  • Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering - Systems
  • Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Office
  • EEB 324
  • Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center
  • 3740 McClintock Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90089
Contact Information
  • somilban@usc.edu
Links