Photo of a robot that knocked over blocks.

Hayley Owens

Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science @ Tufts University

Hayley Owens is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Computer Science department. She obtained her Bachelor's in Computer Science from Louisiana Tech University in the spring of 2022 with a minor in mathematics and a concentration in big data and cloud computing. She currently works in the Assistive Agent Behavior and Learning Lab (AABL).

Current Research

  • Equivariant Policy Perception. Understanding how geometric equivariance affects user perception of robot policy behavior and trajectory motions. Future work includes multi-policy combination and similarity scoring in latent space. As well as investigating transformations for data augmentation and imitation learning.
  • Automated Group Dynamics Modeling. Building an LLM-powered pipeline for transcript processing and behavioral coding, using graph-based representations to model participation inequity in real-time within engineering design teams.

Publications

  • E. Gizzi, …, H. Owens, et. al. “OnAIR: Applications of The NASA On-Board Artificial Intelligence Research Platform.” Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI), Philadelphia, February 2025. [Paper]
  • H. Owens, R. M. Aronson, E. Short. "The Limits of Robot Moderators: Evidence Against Robot Personalization and Participation Equalization in a Building Task". IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Pasadena, August 2024. [Paper]
  • Gizzi, E., Owens, H., Pellegrino, N., Trombley, C., Marshall, J., & Sinapov, J. (2022). Autonomous System-Level Fault Diagnosis in Satellites Using Housekeeping Telemetry. [Paper]

    • Contact

    Happy to chat about HRI, robot learning, or potential collaborations!