Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Director of the Autonomous Systems Group
Ufuk Topcu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the W. A. "Tex" Moncrief, Jr. Professorship in Computational Engineering and Sciences I. He is a core faculty member at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences and Texas Robotics and the director of the Autonomous Systems Group. Ufuk obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008. Before joining The University of Texas at Austin, he was with the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Ufuk’s research focuses on the theoretical and algorithmic aspects of the design and verification of autonomous systems, typically at the intersection of formal methods, reinforcement learning, and control theory. He takes a relatively broad view on autonomy and tends to tackle abstract problems motivated by challenges cutting across multiple applications of autonomy. Ufuk leads several large-scale, multi-institution projects, including an Air Force MURI project, a NASA ULI project, and an NSF CPS Frontier project. His research contributions have been recognized by the NSF CAREER Award, the Air Force Young Investigator Award, the IEEE CSS Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize, and Oden Institute Distinguished Researcher Award. He is a member of the Computing Community Consortium Council.