Suguman Bansal, University of Pennsylvania: “Assured Autonomy : A Formal Approach”

Position: NSF/CRA Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Researcher

Current Institution: University of Pennsylvania

Abstract: Assured Autonomy : A Formal Approach

My research interest lies in advancing Assured Autonomy – How does one design interactive/reactive systems with a high degree of assurance of safety and functionality?. Within this space my research falls at the intersection of Formal Methods and Artificial Intelligence with a focus on the automated generation of intelligent systems from high-level specifications. These specifications could be qualitative (temporal) or quantitative by nature and I have worked towards developing synthesis- and reinforcement learning-based methods to design systems that offer formal guarantees of correctness.

Bio:

Suguman Bansal is an NSF/CRA Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania mentored by Prof. Rajeev Alur. Her research goal is on advancing Assured Autonomy using formal methods and programming languages to design-develop-deploy safe AI systems. She is the recipient of the 2020 NSF CI Fellowship and has been named a 2021 MIT EECS Rising Star. Her research has appeared at top-tier conferences including AAAI CAV TACAS and POPL. She completed her Ph.D. in 2020 advised by Prof. Moshe Y. Vardi from Rice University. She received B.S. with Honors in 2014 from Chennai Mathematical Institute.