Lydia E. Kavraki Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and Bioengineering Rice University Professor, Graduate Program in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics (Joint Appointment) Baylor College of Medicine

Contact Information

For FEDEX please use: Dept. of Computer Science, MS 132 Rice University 6100 Main Street Houston, TX 77005

For regular mail please use: Rice University MS132 P.O. Box 1892 Houston, TX 77251-1892

Office: DH 3106. Directions to my office can be found here.
Tel: (713) 348-5737
Fax: (713) 348-5930

Short Biographical Sketch

Affiliations

• The Department of Computer Science at Rice University
• The Department of Bioengineering at Rice University (Joint Appointment)
• The Graduate Program in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics at the Baylor College of Medicine (Joint Appointment)
• The W.M. Keck Center for Interdisciplinary Science Training (Training Director for Rice)
• The Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology (K2I)
• The Institute for BioSciences and Engineering
• The MD/PhD program at the Baylor College of Medicine

Research

Teaching

Information about courses can be found on Owlnet and Owlspace. Over the years Kavraki has taught a variety of courses including COMP482: Design and Analysis of Algorithms, COMP280: The Mathematics of Computation, COMP450: Algorithmic Robotics, COMP470: Bioinformatics: from Sequence to Structure, COMP650: Topics in Physical Computing, and others.

Awards

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow
• Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Fellow
• American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellow
• World Technology Network (WTN) Fellow
• ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award
• Sloan Fellow
• Whitaker Fellow
• Top TR 100 Young Innovators by MIT's Technology Review Magazine. See related article.
• Popular Science's "Brilliant 10"
• Duncan Award for Excellence in Research and Teaching, Rice University
• Early Academic Career Award of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
• NSF CAREER Award

Activities and News (a rather random collection)

• I have the honor to serve as a Distinguished Lecturer for 2008-2011 for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). The Distinguished Lecturer Program is a flag ship program of RAS and its goal is to promote the field of Robotics and Automation to the broad engineering community and to the public at large. My lectures range from technical lectures to lectures aimed at non-specialists that can be given in high-schools, science fairs, science museums etc. Interested parties can contact me directly. IEEE chapters may also request funding the visit through: Requesting a Visit by a RAS Distinguished Lecturer.
• Associate Editor, The International Journal of Robotics Research.
• Associate Editor, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.
• Associate Editor for Computer Science Review.
• Editorial Board, Springer Tracks in Advanced Robotics. This series covers the technical contents, applications, and multidisciplinary aspects of robotics, embedded in the fields of Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, Control, and Life Sciences, as well as the methodologies behind them.
• Distinguished Lecture, Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE), NSF, 2011.
• A workshop on Motion Planning with OMPL at IROS 2011.
• Check out these cool pictures.
• A robotics textbook Principles of Robot Motion: Theory, Algorithms and Implementations. The book was published by MIT Press. It was a privilege to contribute to that book.
• Co-Chair, the 19th Keck Center Annual Research Conference.
• Co-Chair, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center 61st Annual Symposium on Cancer Research.
• Keynote speaker at the 2008 May meeting of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT).
• A workshop on Hands-on Motion Planning at IROS 2008.
• Co-Organizer, Robotics Session at the German-American Frontiers of Engineering of the National Academy of Engineering, Germany, 2007.
• A workshop on Algorithmic Motion Planning for Autonomous Robots in Challenging Environments.
• Invited Speaker, Computing Research Association (CRA) Symposium, 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, St Louis, MO, February 17, 2006.
• Here is some information about CSters, the Undergraduate Women in Computer Science Club, for which I am a mentor.
• If you are a woman in computer science, check out CRA-W and the opportunities it offers.
• Keynote speaker, 2004 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference. Several CSters from Rice traveled to the conference. See related article.
• I am involved in the Robotics Science and Systems Conference. This is a single-track conference aimed to promote the very best work in robotics.
• I am involved in the The International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics. This is the best venue for algorithmic work in robotics.
• A book: Robotics: The Algorithmic Perspective.
• I gave a plenary talk at the 1999 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
• Here is some information about my 1998 talk at the Frontiers of Engineering Symposium of the National Academy of Engineering.
• Pankaj Agrawal, Matt Mason, and myself co-chaired WAFR 98, the Third International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics.

Last Updated 2011