Karthik Mahadevan

Karthik Mahadevan

PhD Candidate

University of Toronto

About

I am a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Toronto, where I am advised by Dr. Tovi Grossman and Dr. Anthony Tang. My research interests lie in how we can facilitate interactions between humans and robots. My research has been supported by the NSERC CGS-D Fellowship and the Google PhD Fellowship. My work is regularly published at top human-computer interaction venues including CHI, HRI, and UIST, where I have received 1 honorable mention and 1 best paper award. I have also spent considerable time in industry research labs including at Google DeepMind, Meta Reality Labs, Autodesk Research, and Honda Research Institute.

I am on the job market in the 2024-2025 cycle. I am seeking tenure-track positions in academia or industry research roles. Please reach out if you are interested!

Posts

Received Best Paper Award at HRI2024!

Our work, Generative Expressive Robot Behaviors using Large Language Models, received a Best Paper Award (Technical Track) at this year’s HRI!
Mar 14, 2024

Paper accepted to HRI 2024!

The work I conducted while working as a student researcher at Google Deepmind has been accepted to HRI 2024.
Nov 22, 2023

Started student researcher position in the robotics team at Google Deepmind.

I will be focusing on an HRI-related project.
May 29, 2023

3 papers accepted to CHI 2023!

3 papers accepted including one first author paper on querying spatial design recordings, a project I worked on during an internship at Autodesk Research. More details to follow.
Jan 13, 2023

Awarded Google PhD Fellowship in HCI

I am thrilled to announce that I have been named a Google PhD fellow in HCI to support my thesis work on human-robot interaction.
Sep 1, 2022
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Publications

Karthik Mahadevan, Jonathan Chien, Noah Brown, Zhuo Xu, Carolina Parada, Fei Xia, Andy Zeng, Leila Takayama, Dorsa Sadigh (2024). Generative Expressive Robot Behaviors using Large Language Models. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), 2024.
Best Technical Paper (Top 1%).

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Karthik Mahadevan, Qian Zhou, George Fitzmaurice, Tovi Grossman, Fraser Anderson (2023). Tesseract: Querying Spatial Design Recordings by Manipulating Worlds in Miniature. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2023.

PDF Video

Jiannan Li, Mauricio Sousa, Karthik Mahadevan, Bryan Wang, Paula Akemi Aoyagui, Nicole Yu, Angela Yang, Ravin Balakrishnan, Anthony Tang, Tovi Grossman (2023). Stargazer: An Interactive Camera Robot for Capturing How-To Videos Based on Subtle Instructor Cues. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2023.

PDF Video

Rachel Phinnemore, Mohi Reza, Blaine Lewis, Karthik Mahadevan, Bryan Wang, Michelle Annett, Daniel Wigdor (2023). Creepy Assistant: Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure the Perceived Creepiness of Voice Assistants. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2023.

PDF Video

Karthik Mahadevan, Yan Chen, Maya Cakmak, Anthony Tang, Tovi Grossman (2022). Mimic: In-Situ Recording and Re-Use of Demonstrations to Support Robot Teleoperation. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 2022.

PDF Video

Karthik Mahadevan, Maurício Sousa, Anthony Tang, Tovi Grossman (2021). “Grip-that-there”: An Investigation of Explicit and Implicit Task Allocation Techniques for Human-Robot Collaboration. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2021.
Best Paper Honorable Mention (Top 5%).

PDF Video

Ming Hou, Karthik Mahadevan, Lora Oehlberg, Sowmya Somanath, Ehud Sharlin (2020). Autonomous Vehicle-Cyclist Interaction: Peril and Promise. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2020.

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Karthik Mahadevan, Elaheh Sanoubari, Sowmya Somanath, James E. Young, Ehud Sharlin (2019). AV-Pedestrian Interaction Design Using a Pedestrian Mixed Traffic Simulator. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS), 2019.

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Karthik Mahadevan, Sowmya Somanath, Ehud Sharlin (2018). Communicating Awareness and Intent in Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Interaction. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2018.

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