Mecharithm Lab News
In 2026
- October
Mecharithm lab was at IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh, PA. We had several pitch talks, oral presentations and poster presentations.
Dr. Madi served as a session chair for “Coordinating Physical Collaboration in Human-Robot Teams” session and co-chair for “Adapting Robot Decisions to Human State” session at IROS 2026 conference at Pittsburgh, PA, September 30, 2026.
Tipu presented his paper “NeuroCommitSSM” at IROS 2026 at Pittsburgh, PA, Sep. 2026.
Guangping presented her poster for her accepted paper at IROS 2026 workshop titled Touch-to-Action: Enhancing Robot Manipulation through Tactile Perception.
Guangping presented her poster for her accepted paper at the IROS 2026 Late Breaking Results.
Dr. Madi gave a pitch talk as the finalist of the WiRA early career award for their paper “NeuroCommittSSM” at IROS 2026.
Dr. Madi has been recognized as the Finalist, Outstanding WiRA Early Career Contribution Award in Women in Robotics and Automation (WiRA), IROS 2026, Pittsburgh, October 2026. Tipu received the recognition on her behalf.
Dr. Madi participated in 2026 NSF FRR PI meeting in Pittsburgh, PA.
- September
Guangping’s paper titled”From Wizard-of-Oz Human-Robot Dialogue Collection to a Taxonomy of Robot Response Decisions: A Retrospective Analysis of Assistive Pilot Interactions” is accepted in Human-Robot Dialogue Workshop at the 2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).
Guangping’s paper titled “Toward Conversational VLMs: A Pilot Taxonomy of Robot Response Decisions from Wizard-of-Oz Assistive Interaction” is accepted as a LBR at IROS 2026.
Mecharithm lab has welcomed a new SURGE student (Kevin Mueller) for Fall 2026, and Spring 2027.
Guangping was an invited speaker to the “Touch-to-Action Young Speakers Event” as part of the IROS 2026 workshop. The title of her talk is “Feeling through the Robot: Wearable Tactile Feedback for Wizard-of-Oz Assistive Manipulation Tasks”, Sep, 2026.
- August
Dr. Madi is Co-PI on a new Major Research Instrumentation award from the National Science Foundation, MRI: Track 1: Development of a Computational System for Agricultural Structural Modeling and Analysis, led by PI Abigail Stylianou. The award totals $1.2M and runs from 2026 to 2029, supporting computational and robotics infrastructure for modeling and analyzing agricultural structures.
Undergraduate researcher Billy Madden presented the our paper, “A Multimodal Data Collection Framework for Dialogue-Driven Assistive Robotics to Clarify Ambiguities: A Wizard-of-Oz Pilot Study,” at BioRob 2026 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Tipu presented our paper called TriSaFe-Trans at the IEEE RAS/EMBS 11th International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2026), held August 1 to 4, 2026 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Dr. Babaiasl and Guangping Liu Attended the Clare Boothe Luce Conference in New York.
- July
Dr. Madi Babaiasl has been selected as the 2026 Campus KEEN Rising Star at Saint Louis University, one of only 19 faculty members recognized across the entire Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network for best exemplifying the entrepreneurial mindset in engineering education.
Tipu has received a $1,500 RAS Travel Support Award for IROS 2026, which will be held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, September 27-October 1, 2026.Additionally, he has been awarded a $350 Dean’s Travel Award to support his travel to the IROS 2026 conference.
Guangping has received a $1,500 RAS Travel Support Award for IROS 2026, which will be held in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, September 27-October 1, 2026. Additionally, she has been awarded a $350 Dean’s Travel Award to support her travel to the IROS 2026 conference.
- June
Our paper, “NeuroCommitSSM: Decision-Centric Shared Autonomy for Safe Assistive Manipulation via EEG-EMG-ET Commit Readiness,” has been accepted to IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh, presenting a framework that drives an assistive robot from synchronized brain, muscle, and eye signals while triggering motion only once user intent is stable.
Congratulations to Tipu on receiving the Dean’s Travel Award ($350)! Tipu’s paper was accepted for oral presentation at the 11th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2026), to be held in Edmonton, August 1–4, 2026.
Congratulations to Billy on receiving the SSE Undergraduate Research Travel Award ($350) to support his presentation at BioRob 2026 in Edmonton (August 1–4, 2026).
- May
What better way to wrap up the semester and finals week than with a lab cookout? Lots of food and games!
The Mecharithm lab represented their work at the NSF M3X PI meeting, presenting ongoing research and engaging with other researchers across the program.
Dr. Madi has been honored with the 2026 SSE Excellence in Teaching Innovation Award by Saint Louis University’s School of Science & Engineering (SSE) through a peer-nomination process.
- April
Pascal won 2026 prestigious Edward A. Doisy Award given to a graduating senior who most exemplify a model of leadership, academic excellence, and service to Saint Louis University and the greater community. Congrats Pascal!
Billy presented his project “let the teleoperator feel the power” at 2026 SSE Undergraduate Showcase at SLU .
Our project “MORPH Robotic Car with Structured Lesson Plans to Teach Robotics to Learners in All Levels” has received SLU New Venture Accelerator Fund in the amount of $50k.
Dr. Madi has been an invited Presenter for Girl Talks at VEX Robotics World Championship, St. Louis, MO, April 2026.
Dr. Madi Received 2026 Junior Faculty Public Works Award, Office of the Vice President for Research, Saint Louis University, for her YouTube channel “Mecharithm – Robotics and Mechatronics.” Selected from nearly 90 nominations.
Guangping & Nick presented their paper WheelArm-Sim at ISMR 2026 in Knoxville, TN.
Tipu presented his poster pitch at ISMR 2026 in Knoxville, TN.
Mecharithm lab was well represented at ISMR 2026 in Knoxville, TN.
Tipu Sultan’s paper “TriSaFe-Trans: A Safety-Aware Multimodal Intent Recognition Pipeline for Assistive Robotics” has been accepted for oral presentation at the 11th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2026), to be held in Edmonton, August 1–4, 2026.
Guangping Liu’s paper “A Multimodal Data Collection Framework for Dialogue-Driven Assistive Robotics to Clarify Ambiguities: A Wizard-of-Oz Pilot Study” has been accepted for oral presentation at the 11th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2026), to be held in Edmonton, August 1–4, 2026.
Dr. Madi received the Saint Louis University Student Government Association SGA’s 2025–2026 Faculty Excellence Award, nominated by grad students.
Pascal has been awarded the 2026 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. This is one of the most competitive honors in STEM, and it’s well-earned. Congratulations, Pascal!
- March
Dr. Madi’s abstract has been accepted for presentation at the NSF M3X PI Meeting (May 7–8, 2026, Alexandria, VA), where she will deliver a 2-Minute Pitch and Poster Presentation and has also been selected to receive a Travel Award ($1000) supporting her participation.
Tipu presented her research at 2026 SLU Sigma Xi Research Symposium
Guangping presented her research at 2026 SLU Sigma Xi Research Symposium
Guangping received a 2026 ISMR Travel Award ($400) to support presenting her research at the ISMR conference.
Dr. Madi participated as an invited panelist during Engineers Week at the event hosted by ASME St. Louis Professional. The panel explored current advancements and challenges in robotics research, as well as academic pathways for students pursuing careers in robotics and engineering research.
- February
Dr. Madi served as an invited panelist at the Jesuit Research Salon, “Accompanying Youth to Create a Hope-Filled Future,” held at Saint Louis University in February 2026. During the event, Dr. Madi discussed research, mentorship, and the role of technology in supporting and empowering young people.
Tipu has been awarded $350 Dean’s Travel Award to support his travel to ISMR 2026 conference.
- January
Guangping has been awarded $350 Dean’s Travel Award to support her travel to ISMR 2026 conference.
This week, Dr. Madi has been at the KEEN Conference, where her team won Best Pitch in the Entrepreneurial Mindset in Robotics & Mechatronics Courses Workshop, organized by Dr. Maria Kyrarini and her team.
Congratulations to Nick Hawkins on receiving the SSE Undergraduate Research Travel Award ($350)! Nick’s work was accepted for presentation at the 2026 International Symposium on Medical Robotics (ISMR 2026).
In 2025
- December
Thanks to the SLU photographer Sarah Conroy, for this great photo of Tipu and his research. Tipu’s truly a remarkable and hardworking researcher, and this photo is definitely our favorite for 2025.
- November
We celebrated Tipu’s birthday in the lab. Grateful for a team that supports both great science and great people.
- October
Dr. Madi attended the NSF FRR Program PI Meeting in Alexandria, engaging with fellow researchers and advancing collaborative efforts in robotics.
The Mecharithm Lab team participated in the 2025 Starkloff Disability Employment Summit! It was an inspiring day of collaboration, learning, and reimagining assistive and accessible technology for all.
- September
Tipu led a workshop at SLU’s seminar series on AI Literacy for Engineering Students
- August
Dr. Madi taught kinematics of robotic manipulators: a modern approach class.
Dr. Madi is the Co-PI for FIRE Grant for Undergraduate Research (PI: Dr. Koyal Garg), Implantable and Wearable Solutions for Quadriceps Rehabilitation, $2000 (Fall 2025)
- June
Dr. Madi participated in “Project-based Entrepreneurial Learning (PBEL)” workshop in Cincinnati.
Our paper titled “NeuroFusion-Trans: A Novel Transformer-Based EEG-EMG Fusion Model for Assistive Robotics” has been accepted for publication in IEEE Access.
Dr. Madi attended the ICRA 2025 conference in Atlanta.
Mecharithm lab welcomed one paid undergraduate research assistant through SLU’s SURGE program
Guangping has won Midwest Robotics Workshop 2025 Travel Grant and will be presenting her poster titled “WheelArm-Sim: A Manipulation and Navigation Combined Multimodal Synthetic Data Generation Simulator for Unified Control in Assistive Robotics” in this event.
Mecharithm lab had fun and several hours away from research in a scape room, which is a team-based game where you had to solve a series of puzzles and clues to “escape” from a themed room within a set time limit.
Our lab celebrated President Pestello’s retirement with a trip to Grant’s Farm.
Dr. Madi taught mechatronics system design class.
Our paper titled “TransNN-MHA: A Transformer-Based Model to Distinguish Real and Imaginary Motor Intent for Assistive Robotics” has been accepted for publication in IEEE Access.
Dr. Madi was the invited speaker for SLU’s AI in Medicine Conference. Talk title: Using NLP and Robotics in Healthcare: Assisting Individuals with Limited Mobility.
- April
Dr. Madi was the invited speaker for the Seattle Robotic Society. Talk title: Intuitive human-robot interaction for assistive robotics. website: https://seattlerobotics.org/april-19-2025/
Dr. Madi was an invited Speaker for WSU’s Seminar Series. Talk title: Intuitive human-robot interaction for assistive robotics.
Nomin Erdenebileg joined Mecharithm lab as undergraduate research assistant.
- March
Pascal has been named a 2025 Goldwater Scholar! The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is one of the most prestigious awards for undergraduates pursuing STEM research in the United States, and Pascal is one of 50 computer science/mathematics-focused students to win this award nationally.
- February
Mecharithm Lab hosted a visit from middle school students to the lab, where we talked about anything robotics! They had so much fun chatting, enjoying snacks delivered by robots, and working on various robotics projects
- January
Nick Hawkins joined Mecharithm lab as undergraduate research assistant.
In 2024
- December
Joel and Pascal, two outstanding undergraduate researchers at the Mecharithm Lab, attended the 2024 IEEE BigData Conference in Washington, DC. They presented their poster, and their accepted paper will be published in the conference proceedings.
Dr. Madi taught modern robotics class.
- November
Dr. Madi recognized as SLU’s 2024-2025 Chaifetz Fellow winning $2500
Joel and other students’ paper titled “EMG-TransNN-MHA: A Transformer-Based Model for Enhanced Motor Intent Recognition in Assistive Robotics” is accepted as a poster presentation at 2024 IEEE BigData conference.
Joel and Pascal received travel awards from SSE’s UG Research Travel Award ($300 each) and the computer science department ($300 for Joel) to attend 2024 IEEE BigData conference in Washington DC next month.
Pascal and other undergraduate researchers’ paper titled “Improving Robotic Arms through Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, and Edge Computing” is accepted as an oral presentation for the 2025 3rd International Conference on Mechatronics, Control, and Robotics (ICMCR 2025 to be held in Singapore next year).
We celebrated Halloween and Tipu’s birthday.
- October
Pascal and other undergraduates’ paper titled “Deployment of Large Language Models to Control Mobile Robots at the Edge” is accepted as an oral presentation for the 2025 3rd International Conference on Mechatronics, Control, and Robotics (ICMCR 2025 to be held in Singapore next year).
Dr. Madi attended the IROS 2024 conference at UAE.
Guangping won Kanako Miura Travel Award for the Humanoids 2024 conference
- August
Dr. Madi got one paid undergraduate research assistant through SLU’s SURGE program
- July
Dr. Madi attended Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in STEM Conference in Chicago.
Dr. Madi received a Travel Grant from the Luce Foundation to Attend Clare Boothe Luce Program for Women in STEM Annual Conference
- June
Guangping Liu joined Mecharithm lab as a PhD student.
Tipu Sultan joined Mecharithm lab as a PhD student
- May
Dr. Madi taught Mechatronics System Design Course.
- April
Kaleb Yu presented his research at Undergraduate Student Showcase at SLU.
Dr. Madi Got Travel Grant from NSF to Attend 2024 NSF FRR-NRI PI Meeting as an Aspiring PI
Leo, and Naveena started working in Mecharithm lab.
- February
Dr. Madi is a co-PI for an AI for Medicine Seed Grant at SLU, Bio-inspired 3D Perception Algorithms on Neuromorphic Architectures, $3000
- January
Pascal, Kaleb, and Lucy joined Mecharithm lab as undergraduate research assistants.
Dr. Madi is PI for SLU’s FIRE Grant for Undergraduate Research, WheelArm Project, $3000 (Spring 2024), $3000 (Fall 2024), $3000 (Spring 2025), $1000 (Fall 2025)
In 2023
- October
Dr. Madi taught Modern Robotics.
- August
Mecharithm lab had new robotics members: Baxter, Gen3 Robot Arm, PincherX 100, Elegoo Smart Robot Car.
Mecharithm lab is formed.
- July
Dr. Madi received a seed grant of 500k as Clare Boothe Luce Professor of Robotics & Autonomous Systems from Henry Luce Foundation
