Our Approach

A gymnastics coach does not teach by commanding joint angles. Similarly, embodied intelligence requires understanding the fundamental principles of physical learning rather than exhaustive programming of specific motions.

Research at EMBER follows a principled direction, prioritizing methods that develop deep understanding over demonstrations that fail to scale. We are particularly interested in studying the sim-to-real gap as a robustness metric when we deploy our models zero-shot on hardware.

EMBER Seminars

Cathy Wu (MIT): Tackling the Long Tail of Transportation Optimization with Machine Learning
Apr 29, 2026 recording

Cathy Wu (MIT): Tackling the Long Tail of Transportation Optimization with Machine Learning

Mac Schwager (Stanford): How General are Generalist Robot Policies?
Apr 22, 2026 recording

Mac Schwager (Stanford): How General are Generalist Robot Policies?

Leslie Kaelbling (MIT): Rational Robots
Apr 20, 2026 recording

Leslie Kaelbling (MIT): Rational Robots

Jaime Fernández Fisac (Princeton): Scaling Safety-Critical Control Without Surrendering Guarantees
Apr 15, 2026 recording

Jaime Fernández Fisac (Princeton): Scaling Safety-Critical Control Without Surrendering Guarantees

Allison Okamura (Stanford): When Robots Care: Assistive Medical Robotics from Hospital to Home
Apr 01, 2026 recording

Allison Okamura (Stanford): When Robots Care: Assistive Medical Robotics from Hospital to Home

David Hyunchul Shim (KAIST): From Drones to Cars to Generalist Approaches
Mar 18, 2026 recording

David Hyunchul Shim (KAIST): From Drones to Cars to Generalist Approaches

Alison Gopnik (UC Berkeley): Causal Learning as Empowerment Gain
Mar 11, 2026 recording

Alison Gopnik (UC Berkeley): Causal Learning as Empowerment Gain

Carlo Sferrazza (Amazon FAR): Humanoid Robot Learning
Feb 18, 2026 recording

Carlo Sferrazza (Amazon FAR): Humanoid Robot Learning

Sergey Levine (UC Berkeley): Robot Foundation Models
Feb 11, 2026 recording

Sergey Levine (UC Berkeley): Robot Foundation Models

Rodney Brooks (MIT): Designing Embodied Intelligences with Which People Will Willingly Cohabit
Feb 04, 2026 recording

Rodney Brooks (MIT): Designing Embodied Intelligences with Which People Will Willingly Cohabit

Zen Luo (NVIDIA): Building Humanoid Behavior Foundation Models
Jan 28, 2026 recording

Zen Luo (NVIDIA): Building Humanoid Behavior Foundation Models

Madhur Behl (UVA): Bringing AI Up to Speed
Nov 19, 2025 recording

Madhur Behl (UVA): Bringing AI Up to Speed

Pannag Sanketi (Google DeepMind): Achieving Human Level Competitive Robot Table Tennis - The Journey
Nov 05, 2025 recording

Pannag Sanketi (Google DeepMind): Achieving Human Level Competitive Robot Table Tennis - The Journey

Maani Ghaffari (UMich): Computational Symmetry and Learning for Robotics
Oct 29, 2025 recording

Maani Ghaffari (UMich): Computational Symmetry and Learning for Robotics

John Bicket (Samsara): Making a Real World Impact
Oct 15, 2025 recording

John Bicket (Samsara): Making a Real World Impact

Haozhi Qi (UC Berkeley): The Atomic Skill Approach for Robot Dexterity
Oct 08, 2025 recording

Haozhi Qi (UC Berkeley): The Atomic Skill Approach for Robot Dexterity

Giuseppe Loianno (UC Berkeley): Learning Robot Super Autonomy
Oct 01, 2025 recording

Giuseppe Loianno (UC Berkeley): Learning Robot Super Autonomy

Soon-Jo Chung (Caltech): Learning and Decision Making for Agile Robots Under Failure
Sep 17, 2025 recording

Soon-Jo Chung (Caltech): Learning and Decision Making for Agile Robots Under Failure

Ken Goldberg (UC Berkeley): Good Old-Fashioned Engineering Can Close the 100,000-Year “Data Gap”
Sep 10, 2025 recording

Ken Goldberg (UC Berkeley): Good Old-Fashioned Engineering Can Close the 100,000-Year “Data Gap”