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Research Interests: My group is interested in engineering and understanding self-organizing collective systems; we investigate many topics on the border of CS and biology. Two main areas are: (1) Biologically-inspired multi-agent systems: collective algorithms, programming paradigms, modular and swarm robotics (2) Biological multi-agent systems: models of multicellular morphogenesis, collective insect behavior. For more about our lab: SSR website. Short bio: I am a professor in Computer Science, in the Harvard School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences. I am also a core faculty member of the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically
Inspired Engineering, where I co-lead the BioRobotics Platform.
Before becoming faculty, I spent a year as a research fellow in the Department of Systems Biology at
Harvard Medical School, where I am still affiliated.
I was a graduate student and postdoc lecturer at the MIT Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and a member of the Amorphous Computing Group and
the Bell Labs GRPW graduate fellowship program. I am grateful to have
received the Microsoft New Faculty Fellowship Award (2005), NSF Career
Award (2007), the Thomas D. Cabot associate professor chair (2009),
the Borg Early Career Award (2010), and a Radcliffe Fellowship (2012)
Teaching: On sabbatical (Sept 2012 - Aug 2013) Contact: I am on sabbatical this academic year at the
Radcliffe Institute. Press:
Read about our groups' work in |
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Self-Organising Systems ResearchBiological systems get tremendous mileage by using vast numbers of cheap and unreliable components to achieve complex goals reliably. For example, cells with identical DNA cooperate to form complex structures, such as ourselves, with incredible reliability in the face of cell death, variations in cell numbers, and changes in the environment. Emerging technologies have made it possible to create our own large-scale multi-agent systems, by bulk-manufacturing tiny computing and sensing agents and embedding these into materials and the environment. We would like to build novel applications from these technologies --- vast sensor-rich environments, robot swarms and reconfigurable modular robots, programmable materials. A key challenge is achieving the kind ofreliability and complexity that cells achieve:
My research interest is developing programming paradigms for robust collective behavior, inspired by biology. Developmental biology, how cells cooperate in tissues and multicellular organisms, can provide insights into how global self-repair and adaptation can be achieved through simple local behaviors. The study of social insects can teach us how to program cooperation and adaptation amongst mobile agents. Ultimately, the goal is to create a framework for the design and analysis of self-organising multi-agent systems. My group's approach is to formalize these strategies as algorithms, analysis, theoretical models, and programming languages. We are especially interested in global-to-local compilation, the ability to specify user goals at the high level and automatically derive provable strategies at the agent level. This methodology is applicable to a wide range of distributed multi-agent systems, from wireless sensor networks to modular and swarm robotics, and we pursue both theory and physical implementations of our work, especially in robotics. My other research interest is understanding robust collective behavior in biological systems. Building artificial systems can give us insights into how complex global properties can arise from identically-programmed parts --- for example, how cells can form scale-independent patterns, how large morphological variations can arise from small genetic changes, and how complex cascades of decisions can tolerate variations in timing. I am interested in mathematical and computational models of multi-cellular behavior, that capture hypotheses of cell behavior and cell-cell interactions as multi-agent systems, and can be used to provide insights into systems level behavior that should emerge. We work in close collaboration with biologists, and currently study growth and pattern formation in the fruit fly wing. Research Group: Selected Publications:
Media: Academic:
Awards:
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Interview with Radhika on
Teaching:
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CS 266:Bio-inspired Multi-agent Systems (Fall 04-08, Spring 2010-12) This class surveys the state of the art in biologically-inspired approaches to designing collective intelligence in diverse domains. Topics include: swarm intelligence, cellular automata and computing, and evolutionary algorithms, with applications to networking, optimization, and robotics. Class is based on reading and discussing research papers, and students undertake a semester-long research project. |
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CS 189r: Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems
(CS189r Spring 2011, CS199r Spring 2009) Building autonomous robotic systems requires understanding how to make robots that observe, reason, act and coordinate. In this project-based course, we study this area in the context of a new project each year. In previous years, the focus has been on autonomous robot soccer, how to get robots to play adversarial games without human intervention. This course combines learning the fundamentals of robotics programming with AI and systems engineering for robotics. |
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Previous Courses taught at Harvard
CS182: Intelligent Machines: Reasoning, Actions, and Plans (Fall 2009, 2010, 2011) CS51: Introduction to Computer Science II (Spring 2005, 06, 07, 08) SB 301: Special Topics in Systems Biology (Fall 2005) |
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Courses taught at MIT, as a postdoctoral lecturer
MIT 6.042: Mathematics for Computer Scientists: Fall01-02, with Prof. Albert Meyer.(also on MIT OpenCourseWare) MIT 6.978: Biologically Motivated Programming Technology for Robust Systems: Fall 2002. (final projects) MIT 6.033: Computer Systems Engineering: Spring 2003, Recitation Instructor. MIT 2004 IAP Course on Synthetic Biology, with Drew Endy, Tom Knight, and Pam Silver. |
Undergraduate Clubs and OutReach Activities
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Harvard Women in CS Club (WICS) Harvard Women in Computer Science is a group dedicated to building a network of women in computer science accross Harvard - undergrads, grads, faculty, entreprenuers, technologists, and alums! We host regular social events, career events with companies, and try to connect with the larger CS happenings around Boston area. Visit our website to join the group and subscribe to our mailing list and facebook page. |
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Outreach Program Our lab uses inspiration from nature to design computing and robotic systems. We enjoy presenting our work to K-12 students and getting them excited about science and engineering. We have several non-technical presentations and robot demonstrations that can travel to a local school or event, and we can also host short lab tours in our lab. Although we are a small lab, we try to do a few outreach events every semester and we are especially interested in reaching minorities that are underrepresented in engineering. You can read more about the events we have done on the webpage link. If you are interested in having students visit the lab, or us bringing a workshop to you, contact Radhika by email. |
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Robotic Futbol Club (RFC) Cambridge
RFC Cambridge is the Harvard-MIT undergraduate RoboCup soccer team. We took our first team of autonomous robots to play soccer in the Robocup US Open held at Georgia Tech (2006). Then they headed to Germany to compete in the International Robocup Competition!. Our very own RFC Members were even featured on CARTOON NETWORK! In 2009, we hosted the U.S Open Small-size Robot Soccer Competition at Hilles Penthouse, Harvard University. The Harvard College Engineering Society (HCES) is the umbrella undergraduate group aimed at promoting engineering and cross disciplinary collaboration on campus - i.e. We do COOL things. Come join us! Faculty Advisors: Radhika Nagpal, Robert Wood Highlights video, 2007 |
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iGEM Intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine
Competition Although I no longer participate in iGEM activities, happy to talk to any one who is interested in joining. Each year many universities compete in iGEM --- to design, build and characterize genetically-encoded finite state machines. The challenge is to go from idea, to design, to DNA, to implementation (in cells) in 3 months! The Harvard Team consists of undergraduates from many different disciplines, and they have built many things from bacteria that can propogate a pulse, to dna structures that self-assemble. Read about it here: Gazette Article (Aug 25, 2005) and The New York Times (Nov, 2005); the Harvard iGEM 2006 team project on DNA nanostructures for drug delivery ( MIT Technology Review article); Harvard's 2008 team won gold with their bactricity project |
ART, and Other Fun Stuff
As an undergraduate at MIT, I co-founded the MIT Bhangra Club and taught there for many years (1994-2004 website). During my time at Harvard, I have made a number of paintings, that you can see in My Art Album. These days I spend alot of my time with my husband and our two kids, who all also happen to like art, dance, robots, etc - Go figure!
The painting on the left ("Museum of Natural history") is based on a
beautiful tree on Oxford Street right accross from the Harvard Museum
of Natural History. The birds and animals are ones you'd find in New
England, India, and Suriname. Acrylic on canvas. The painting on the
right ("Riding the Dragon") is based on a tree on the banks of the
Charles River, not far from the Esplanade.