Srikar Babu Gadipudi

Hello! I am Srikar Babu Gadipudi. I am a junior at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, majoring in Electrical Engineering. My primary research interests are oriented toward the intersection of control engineering, robotics and reinforcement learning. I am involved in developing emotionally intelligent robots for human mental well-being with Professor Hatice Gunes at the Affective Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory-AFAR at the University of Cambridge. I am also working on theoretical reinforcement learning, specifically employing the Newton method for policy gradient algorithms, with Prof. Prashanth L.A. at IIT Madras. Additionally, I worked on offline reinforcement learning for HVAC control with the Tata Research Team and reinforcement learning for optimal dynamic pricing with Prof. Rachel Kalpana Kalaimani at IIT Madras. This summer, I am thrilled to join Prof. Katia Sycara’s team, where I will work alongside Dr. Woojun Kim with the goal of integrating offline reinforcement learning into informative path planning. I am thankful to the RISS organizers for providing me with this amazing opportunity.