February 24, 2023
By Tom Fleischman, Cornell Chronicle
Sumanta Basu and Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee, both assistant professors in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, are among the nine Cornell faculty who have been awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Awards. These substantive awards—with financial support spread across the next five years—support early-career faculty who have, according to the NSF, "the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization."
Basu, statistics and data science, studies network modeling of high-dimensional time series and nonlinear ensemble learning methods. In many areas of modern biological and social sciences, researchers and practitioners seek to gain insight into the dynamics of a complex system using large-scale time series datasets. The overarching goal of Basu’s project is to develop scalable statistical methods for learning such dynamic relationships using high-dimensional time series datasets, and provide a rigorous analysis of their properties. The research outcomes will be integrated into education and outreach activities, including training of graduate and undergraduate students.
Bhattacharjee, computer science, studies ways to enable robots to improve the quality of life of people with mobility limitations by assisting them with activities of daily living (ADLs), such as feeding, dressing and bathing. The goal is to develop caregiving robots that can assist people with disabilities – C1-C4 spinal cord injuries, in particular – in performing ADLs in real-life settings by leveraging close-proximity physical interactions. Realizing that contact with other humans and objects is inevitable, Bhattacharjee hopes to leverage this physical contact to learn safe and efficient robot control policies from it. The educational component will include programming for underrepresented minorities, and the design of an interdisciplinary training program to aid in the development and use of robotic technology applications.
A version of this story was originally published in the Cornell Chronicle.