Research

Robotics

Security & Cryptography

Impact Areas

Cybersecurity

Lead

Howard Shrobe

Research Group

Geometric Data Processing Group

Our group studies geometric problems in computer graphics, computer vision, machine learning, optimization, and other disciplines.

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Justin Solomon

Community of Research

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

The focus of the HCI CoR is inventing new systems and technology that lie at the interface between people and computation, and understanding their design, implementation, and societal impact.

Stefanie Mueller

Leads

Stefanie Mueller

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Stefanie Mueller

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Security & Cryptography

Impact Areas

Cybersecurity

Research Group

MIT App Inventor

MIT App Inventor is an intuitive, visual programming environment that allows everyone – even children – to build fully functional apps for smartphones and tablets.

Hal Abelson

Leads

Hal Abelson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Lead

Hal Abelson

Research Group

Multicore Algorithmics

We develop techniques for designing, implementing, and reasoning about multiprocessor algorithms, in particular concurrent data structures for multicore machines and the mathematical foundations of the computation models that govern their behavior.

Nir Shavit

Leads

Nir Shavit

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Cybersecurity

Lead

Nir Shavit

Research Group

Sensing, Learning and Inference

We develop scalable algorithms for analysis of complex, high-dimensional data.

John Fisher

Leads

John Fisher

Research Areas

Robotics

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Lead

John Fisher

Research Group

Sussman Lab

We focus on understanding the problem-solving strategies used by scientists and engineers, with the goals of automating parts of the process and formalizing educational methods.

Gerald Sussman

Leads

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Gerald Sussman

Research Group

Usable Programming Group

We design and study systems that improve the learnability, efficiency, and safety of software development.

Rob Miller

Leads

Rob Miller

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Rob Miller

Research Group

Weiss Laboratory for Synthetic Biology

The Weiss Lab seeks to create integrated biological systems capable of autonomously performing useful tasks, and to elucidate the design principles underlying complex phenotypes.

Leads

Research Areas

Computational Biology

Impact Areas

Health Care

13 Project Results

Project

3D Generative Adversarial Networks

Cognitive AI Community of Research

We study the problem of 3D object generation. We propose a novel framework, 3D Generative Adversarial Network (3D-GAN), leveraging recent advances in volumetric convolutional networks and generative adversarial nets.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Computational Cognitive Science Group

Project

A Counterfactual Simulation Model of Causal Judgment

Cognitive AI Community of Research

We develop a computational model that explains how people make causal judgments in physical scenes by mentally simulating counterfactual outcomes and comparing those to what actually happened.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Imagination, Computation, and Expression Laboratory (ICE Lab)

Health Care

Project

AIRvatar System: A Framework for Analyzing Virtual Identities

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

AIRvatar is a system that telemetrically collects and analyzes fine-grained data on users’ virtual identities and the process used to create them.

D. Fox Harrell

Leads

D. Fox Harrell

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

D. Fox Harrell

Project

Better Models for Ride-Sharing

Traffic is not just a nuisance for drivers: It’s also a public health hazard and bad news for the economy.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Computational Design and Fabrication Group

Transportation

Project

Computational Knitting: Patterning and Shaping for Everyone

Knitting is the new 3d printing. It has become popular again with the widespread availability of patterns and templates, together with the maker movements. Lower-cost industrial knitting machines are starting to emerge, but we are still missing the corresponding design tools. Our goal is to fill this gap.

Alexandre Kaspar

Leads

Alexandre Kaspar

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Alexandre Kaspar

Project

Computational Multicopter Design

A system that can help you to design our own drone!

Tao Du

Leads

Tao Du

Research Areas

Robotics

Impact Areas

Computational Design and Fabrication Group

Transportation

Tao Du

Project

Crowdsourcing in Graphics and Vision

Our goal is to develop new applications and algorithms that leverage the skills of distributed crowdworkers, notably for image and video processing applications.

Alexandre Kaspar

Leads

Alexandre Kaspar

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Alexandre Kaspar

Project

Foundry: Design for Multi-Material 3-D Printing

A new approach for designs in multi-material fabrication

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

InstantCAD: Interactive Design Exploration/Optimization for CAD Models

Almost every object we use is developed with computer-aided design (CAD). While CAD programs are good for creating designs, using them to actually improve existing designs can be difficult and time-consuming.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Sensible Deep Learning for 3D Data

Machine Learning

Developing state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms for analyzing and modeling 3D geometry

Justin Solomon

Leads

Justin Solomon

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Justin Solomon

Project

Single-Image 3D Interpreter Network

Cognitive AI Community of Research

We aim to understand 3D object structure from a single image. We propose an end-to-end framework which sequentially estimates 2D keypoint heatmaps and 3D object structure, by training it on both real 2D-annotated images and synthetic 3D data and by integrating a 3D-to-2D projection layer.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Tiramisu Compiler

Commit Group

A polyhedral compiler for expressing image processing, DNN, and linear/tensor algebra applications

Saman Amarasinghe

Leads

Saman Amarasinghe

Research Areas

Computer Architecture

Impact Areas

Saman Amarasinghe

Project

Where Are They Looking?

Our goal is to build a system that predicts where people are looking in images. Given an image and the location of a head, our approach follows the gaze of the person and identifies the object being looked at.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Health Care

20 People Results

PI
Core/Dual

Ted Adelson

Professor

Vision, touch sensing, robotics

E adelson@csail.mit.edu

T 253-0645

Lead

Blood Pressure Imager

Member

Noria: a new data-flow system for web applications

Vision, touch sensing, robotics

Jonathan Behrens

Graduate Student

E behrensj@mit.edu

RM 32-G978B

Member

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

Mustafa Doga Dogan

Graduate Student

E doga@mit.edu

Member

HCI Engineering Group

Tao Du

Graduate Student

CS PhD student

E taodu@csail.mit.edu

Lead

Computational Multicopter Design

CS PhD student

PI
Core/Dual

Fredo Durand

Professor

Vision, graphics, computational photography

E fredo@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7223

Lead

Computational Understanding of Visualizations and Graphic Designs

Member

Computational Bounce Flash for Indoor Portraits

Halide

Vision, graphics, computational photography

Gregory Falco

Research Affiliate

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

E gfalco@mit.edu

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

PI
Core/Dual

John Fisher

Senior Research Scientist

Vision, machine learning, signal processing

E fisher@csail.mit.edu

T 253-0788

Lead

Sensing, Learning and Inference

Member

Learning and Intelligent Systems

Vision, machine learning, signal processing

Michael Foshey

Mechanical Engineer/Project Manager

Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, Digital Fabrication

E mfoshey@mit.edu

Additive Manufacturing, Robotics, Digital Fabrication

PI
Core/Dual

Leslie Kaelbling

Professor

Robotics, machine learning, motion planning

E lpk@csail.mit.edu

T 258-9695

Lead

Machine Learning

Learning and Optimization

Robotic Planning and Manipulation with Force Information

Reliable Robotic Construction of Multi-object Arrangements

Learning and Planning with Compressed Linear Expectation Models

Active Learning of Models for Planning

Task and Motion Planning for Autonomous Robots

Member

Robotics, machine learning, motion planning

PI
Core/Dual

David Karger

Professor

Helping people manage information

E karger@csail.mit.edu

T 258-6167

Lead

Haystack Group

Mavo: Creating Interactive Data-Driven Web Applications by Authoring HTML

Algorithms Group

Wikum: Bridging Discussion Systems and Wikis with Collective Summarization

Squadbox: Combating Online Harassment using Friendsourced Moderation

Eyebrowse: Social and Public Web Browsing

Talkademic: Motivating Online Academic Discourse

Member

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

Theory of Computation Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

Helping people manage information

Alexandre Kaspar

Graduate Student

Graphics, crowdsourcing and hybrid fabrication.

E akaspar@mit.edu

Lead

Crowdsourcing in Graphics and Vision

Computational Knitting: Patterning and Shaping for Everyone

Graphics, crowdsourcing and hybrid fabrication.

Fern Keniston

Senior Administrative Assistant

Research and Education Support

E fern@csail.mit.edu

T 253-5860

RM 32/ 32-250A/ 391

Member

Clinical Decision-Making Group

Research and Education Support

PI
Core/Dual

Tomas Lozano-Perez

Professor

Robotics, artificial intelligence

E tlp@csail.mit.edu

T 253-7889

Lead

Learning and Intelligent Systems

Learning and Optimization

Robotic Planning and Manipulation with Force Information

Reliable Robotic Construction of Multi-object Arrangements

Learning and Planning with Compressed Linear Expectation Models

Active Learning of Models for Planning

Task and Motion Planning for Autonomous Robots

Member

Computational Design and Fabrication Group

Robotics, artificial intelligence

PI
Core/Dual

Wojciech Matusik

Professor

Graphics, vision, fabrication, robotics, hci

E wojciech@csail.mit.edu

T 324-8432

Lead

Computational Multicopter Design

Member

Simit: A Language for Computing on Sparse Systems

InstantCAD: Interactive Design Exploration/Optimization for CAD Models

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

Graphics, vision, fabrication, robotics, hci

PI
Core/Dual

Daniela Rus

Director

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

E rus@csail.mit.edu

T 258-7567

RM 32/ 32-368/ 374

Lead

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Safety Standards for Autonomous Vehicles

Soft Contact Modeling

Practical Secure Computation

Self-Driving Vehicles

Robust Learning for Autonomous Vehicles

Brain-Controlled Robots

Planning in Congestion for Autonomous Vehicles

Socially-Compliant Behavior for Autonomous Driving

Coresets for Machine Learning Algorithms

M-Blocks Modular Robotics

Robot Compiler

Distributed Robot Garden

Route and Motion Planning for Mobility-on-Demand with Rules of the Road

Member

Social Network Extraction from GPS Datasets with Coresets

Task-Driven Co-Optimization Of Articulated Robots

Wearable Blind Navigation

Drones that Drive

Better Models for Ride-Sharing

SoFi - The Soft Robotic Fish

Controlling drones and other robots with gestures

Using Muscle Signals to Lift Objects with Robots

Helping robots learn using demonstrations

CSAIL director, robotics, AI, data science, privacy

Dmitriy Smirnov

Graduate Student

https://people.csail.mit.edu/smirnov/

E smirnov@mit.edu

RM 32-D475B

Member

Sensible Deep Learning for 3D Data

https://people.csail.mit.edu/smirnov/

PI
Core/Dual

Justin Solomon

Assistant Professor

Geometry, graphics, vision, machine learning, optimization.

E jsolomon@mit.edu

Lead

Geometry in Large-Scale Machine Learning

Political Geometry: Establishing Fair Mathematical Standards for Political Redistricting

Sensible Deep Learning for 3D Data

Optimal transport for statistics and machine learning

Geometry and topology for scientific computing and shape analysis

Member

Task-Driven Co-Optimization Of Articulated Robots

Geometry, graphics, vision, machine learning, optimization.

Andrew Spielberg

Graduate Student

E aespielberg@gmail.com

Lead

Robot Compiler

Member

Distributed Robotics Laboratory

Dishita Turakhia

Graduate Student

PhD student in HCIE group at CSAIL

E dishita@mit.edu

Member

HCI Engineering Group

PhD student in HCIE group at CSAIL

Yu Wang

Graduate Student

E wangyu9@mit.edu

RM 32-D475A

Member