Ethan Villalovoz

Hi! I am a senior undergraduate student in Computer Science at Washington State University, aspiring to advance robotics and AI. I am advised by Jana Doppa working on analyzing security vulnerabilities in large language model (LLM)-generated code and improving their accuracy using Bayesian optimization. I am supported by the NIH MARC Fellowship.

My research interests lie in the areas of human-robot interaction, reinforcement learning, and multimodal systems. I will graduate in Spring 2025 with a B.Sc. in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics. I will be applying for graduate school for the Fall 2025 term. Beyond my academic work, I've completed experiences at Oregon State University, Google, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Please feel free to reach out about research or any advice I can help with!

Email  /  CV (Jan. 2025)  /  Bio  /  Google Scholar  /  Twitter  /  Github

News

• 06/2024: This summer, I will be conducting research at Carnegie Mellon University as part of the CMU RISS program.
• 09/2023: I will be participating in Google Research's CS Research Mentorship Program during the Fall semester.
• 07/2023: I am thrilled and sincerely grateful to have been awarded the Generation Google Scholarship.
• 07/2023: My contributions to the work I completed at Oregon State University have been accepted for presentation at IROS 2023!
• 05/2023: This summer, I will be interning as a STEP Intern at Google.
• 05/2023: I am happy to have received and become a MARC Scholar through the National Institutes of Health Fellowship.
• 06/2022: This summer, I conducted research at Oregon State University as part of the REU: Robots in the Real World program.
• 07/2021: I am happy to have received and become an ESTEEMED Scholar through the National Institutes of Health Fellowship.

Research

I am interested in developing socially adaptive learning algorithms that enable robots to navigate and collaborate effectively in socially complex environments.

Spatial formations can give many social cues, such as illustrating a group of people are having a conversation (social affiliation), or that they are trying to move swiftly through a space (functional goal). This work explored how people perceive varied robots formations while navigating through a space and approaching people.

Design by Jon Barron.