|
rj277 [at] cornell [dot] edu I am a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Cornell University, advised by Prof. Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee, and an incoming postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University with Prof. Shuran Song. I build learning-based robotic systems that move beyond the lab, operating in real homes, assisting real people, and continually learning over long-term deployments. My research has earned awards at top robotics venues including RSS, HRI, ICRA, and IROS. During my Ph.D., I have spent summers at the Robotics and AI Institute and Stanford University (with Prof. Dorsa Sadigh). Before that, I completed my B.Tech. in CS at IIT Kharagpur, where I worked with Prof. P. P. Chakrabarti on multi-agent pathfinding, graduated second in my department, and received the Best Thesis Award. cv | research statement | google scholar | twitter | github |
|
- [Mar 2026] 🏆 WAFFLE won the Best Systems Paper Award at HRI 2026!
- [Sep 2025] Continuing as part-time research scientist at RAI Institute.
- [Jun 2025] 🏆 FEAST won the Best Paper Award at RSS 2025!
- [May 2025] Spending the summer at RAI Institute working on preference learning.
- [Apr 2025] 🏆 To Ask or Not to Ask got nominated for Best Paper Award (HRI) at ICRA 2025!
- [Dec 2024] Got selected for the HRI Pioneers Workshop at HRI 2025.
- [Dec 2024] Passed my A-exam (thesis proposal)! Officially a PhD candidate now. 🤓
- [Nov 2024] Organizing a physical caregiving robots workshop at HRI 2025.
- [Mar 2024] 🏆 Our robot-assisted feeding system won the Best Demo at HRI 2024!
- [Feb 2024] 🏆 Feel the Bite got nominated for Best Paper at HRI 2024!
Papers are sorted by recency. Representative works are highlighted.
Scaling Short-Term Memory of Visuomotor Policies for Long-Horizon Tasks
R. Shah, R. K. Jenamani, X. Zhang, L. Sun, R. Martín-Martín, Y. Zhu, D. Ramanan, K. Schmeckpeper
In Submission, 2026
Coloring Between the Lines: Personalization in the Null Space of Planning Constraints
T. Silver*, R. K. Jenamani*, Z. Liu, B. Dodson, T. Bhattacharjee
In Submission, 2026
From Labs to Lives: Towards Holistic Evaluation of Physical Caregiving Robots
R. K. Jenamani, et al.
In Submission, 2026
A. Padmanabha, J. Yuan, T. Mehta, R. K. Jenamani, et al.
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), 2026
🏆 Best Systems Paper Award
Kiri-Spoon: A Kirigami Utensil for Robot-Assisted Feeding
M. Keely, B. Franco, C. Grothoff, R. K. Jenamani, T. Bhattacharjee, D. P. Losey, H. Nemlekar
The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2025
FEAST: A Flexible Mealtime-Assistance System Towards In-the-Wild Personalization
R. K. Jenamani, T. Silver, B. Dodson, S. Tong, A. Song, Y. Yang, Z. Liu, B. Howe, A. Whitneck, T. Bhattacharjee
Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2025
🏆 Best Paper Award
Towards Deployable Physical Caregiving Robots: A Case Study in Mealtime Assistance
R. K. Jenamani
PhD Thesis Proposal — HRI Pioneers Workshop, 2025
To Ask or Not To Ask: Robot-assisted Bite Acquisition with Human-in-the-loop Contextual Bandits
R. Banerjee, R. K. Jenamani*, S. Vasudev*, A. Nanavati, S. Dean†, T. Bhattacharjee†
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2025
🏆 Best Paper Award Finalist (HRI)
FLAIR: Feeding via Long-Horizon AcquIsition of Realistic dishes
R. K. Jenamani*, P. Sundaresan*, M. Sakr, T. Bhattacharjee†, D. Sadigh†
Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2024
An Adaptable, Safe, and Portable Robot-Assisted Feeding System
E. K. Gordon*, R. K. Jenamani*, A. Nanavati*, et al.
Companion of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), 2024
🏆 Best Demo Award
Feel the Bite: Robot-Assisted Inside-Mouth Bite Transfer using Robust Mouth Perception and Physical Interaction-Aware Control
R. K. Jenamani, D. Stabile, Z. Liu, A. Anwar, K. Dimitropoulou, T. Bhattacharjee
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), 2024
🏆 Best Systems Paper Award Finalist
SPARCS: Structuring Physically Assistive Robotics for Caregiving with Stakeholders-in-the-loop
R. Madan*, R. K. Jenamani*, V. T. Nguyen, A. Moustafa, X. Hu, K. Dimitropoulou, T. Bhattacharjee
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2022
American Occupational Therapy Association - INSPIRE, 2025
RCareWorld: A Human-centric Simulation World for Caregiving Robots
R. Ye*, W. Xu*, H. Fu, R. K. Jenamani, V. Nguyen, C. Lu, K. Dimitropoulou, T. Bhattacharjee
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2022
🏆 Best Robocup Paper Award, Finalist for Best Paper Award / Best Student Paper Award
Optimal Multi Agent Pathfinding for Non-Unit Edge Cost Domains and Precedence Constrained Tasks
R. K. Jenamani
B.Tech. Thesis - Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, 2021
🏆 Best Thesis Award
Robotic system feeds people with severe mobility limitations
Cornell Chronicle, May 8, 2024
Caregiving simulator advances research in assistive robotics
Cornell Chronicle, November 29, 2022
Novice roboticists find inspiration, community at SoNIC
Cornell Chronicle, 25 July 2022
Caregiving Robots at Cornell
IEEE Spectrum Video Friday, 14 January 2022
A Team Is Developing Robotic Arms to Feed People With Spinal Injuries
Interesting Engineering, 11 January 2022
Robot-assisted feeding the focus of $1.5M NSF grant
Cornell Chronicle, 10 January 2022
website adapted from here