Tabitha Edith Lee

Greetings! I’m Tabitha, or “Tab” for short. I am a roboticist and Senior Autonomy/Artificial Intelligence Researcher at the Advanced Technology Center of Lockheed Martin Space. Previously, I completed my Ph.D. in Robotics at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where I was a member of the Intelligent Autonomous Manipulation group led by Prof. Oliver Kroemer.

During my Ph.D., my thesis focused on causal robot learning for manipulation. Specifically, I investigated the interplay between robot perception and control through the lens of causality to learn and leverage the causal structure of manipulation tasks. To this end, my research built toward a causal robot learning system that empowers lifelong autonomous manipulation in challenging, open-world settings, such as homes, hospitals, and restaurants.

Additionally, I am broadly interested in fundamental robotics and machine intelligence problems that have strong real-world impact, such as those I explored through my prior internships with NVIDIA’s Seattle Robotics Lab, Lockheed Martin Space ATC, and Uber ATG.

Prior to my Ph.D., I invented, developed, and deployed a vision-based localization system for an underwater robot that inspects nuclear reactors. This technology was invented through my M.S. in Robotics research with Prof. Nathan Michael and the Resilient Intelligent Systems Lab. Before CMU, I led the development of multiple software capabilities for safety-critical autonomous systems in the aerospace industry.

I am also an RSS Pioneer, an NCWIT Collegiate Award Honorable Mention recipient, and a Siebel Scholar in Computer Science.

Beyond my technical interests, I am also interested in working towards greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in both academia and society, including ways in which automation can lead to greater societal advancement.

My website is currently a work in progress as I have moved to a new host. It will be finished soon. Thank you!