Undergrads Dive Into Research Projects

Three computer science students have been honored with the prestigious 2025 CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award by the Computing Research Association (CRA). This recognition celebrates Emre Adabag, Jiaqian Li, and Kechen Liu for their dedication to research and academic excellence. Their nominations, submitted by faculty members, highlight not only their academic achievements but also their impactful contributions beyond the classroom.

Emre Adabag – Finalist
Emre Adabag is a senior in SEAS and does research in Barnard College’s Accessible and Accelerated Robotics (A2R) Lab. He worked with Assistant Professor Brian Plancher to develop  which uses the power of graphics processing units (GPUs) to accelerate robot motion planning and control. This computational breakthrough enables robots to move more agilely and dexterously. The research was published in the Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024) and also won a Best Poster Award at the annual poster session of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Model-Based Optimization for Robotics. Furthermore, this work serves as the foundation for the A2R Lab’s new NSF CSSI grant, aimed at creating open-source, GPU-accelerated optimal control tools to benefit the broader robotics community.

Jiaqian Li – Honorable Mention
Jiaqian Li works in the Crypto Lab under the guidance of Professor Tal Malkin. He has been working on a cryptography research project that studies the relationship between oblivious black-box reductions and Total Function Nondeterministic Polynomial (TFNP) hardness. Total problems are ones that are guaranteed to have a solution, even if it may be hard to find. Examples include factoring or finding a Nash equilibrium. Li’s research explores the possibility of establishing hardness of total problems from a cryptographic tool called one-way functions (OWFs).

Li’s previous research on game theory was published at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2024). He worked with Professor Minming Li of the City University of Hong Kong, and they explored how to fairly locate undesirable facilities, like waste treatment plants, among different groups of people, aiming to design systems that encourage honesty about location preferences and minimize the negative impact on all groups. The study proposed and analyzed several mechanisms, including both deterministic and randomized approaches, with the goal of finding locations that are as fair as possible and close to the ideal solution, while also establishing limitations on what is achievable.

Kechen Liu – Honorable Mention
Kechen Liu earned an honorable mention for her research in wireless power delivery systems for micro-robotic applications. Under the guidance of Associate Professor Xia Zhou at the MobileX lab, Liu contributed to the development of a laser-based power delivery system that enabled sustainable power for microrobots. She worked on designing and implementing an event camera-based tracking system that achieved millimeter-level tracking accuracy and continuous laser alignment with microrobots in motion. Aside from that, she contributed to multiple projects at the MobileX group including developing a palm-vein biometric authentication system. Liu is also interested in wireless sensing and communication systems, and she has worked with Professor Gil Zussman on a sub-Terahertz sensing project.

The recognition highlights the department’s dynamic research community, where students are empowered to innovate, explore, and excel in their respective fields. Professors often offer research opportunities for undergraduate students. Those interested should proactively reach out to faculty members to inquire about available positions.

Professor Tal Malkin typically has one or two undergraduate students who work on cryptography research. Students need to have mathematical maturity; ideally, they should have taken Malkin’s graduate-level Introduction to Cryptography class.

Associate Professor Xia Zhou mentors two to three undergraduate students per semester, guiding them through hands-on research in the lab. Students must be highly motivated and demonstrate strong analytical and system-building skills. Since many projects involve developing physical prototypes, proficiency with hardware is essential.

Assistant Professor Brian Plancher hosts a select group of undergraduate researchers each semester. While prior experience in robotics, parallel programming, or machine learning is not required, a strong foundation in computer science, electrical engineering, or mathematics is expected, as the research involves mathematical rigor and programming expertise.