Prajwal Koirala

I am a Ph.D. student in the College of Engineering at Cornell University, broadly interested in robotics, machine learning, and robot learning. My research centers on developing intelligent and reliable robotic systems that can operate safely and efficiently in uncertain, dynamic environments. I am particularly fascinated by problems at the intersection of perception, decision-making, and control, including how machine learning can be integrated with principled models to improve safety, robustness, and generalization in real-world robotics.

Before joining Cornell, I received my Master of Science from Iowa State University, where I worked on reinforcement learning and safety-critical control for autonomous systems under the guidance of Dr. Cody Fleming and in frequent collaboration with Dr. Soumik Sarkar. My research included developing offline reinforcement learning algorithms that integrate safety constraints into data-driven decision-making, resulting in publications at leading conferences in machine learning, robotics, and controls (ICLR, CoRL, CDC, among others). I also gained teaching experience as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, conducting lab sessions in system dynamics and control and received multiple Research Excellence Awards for my contributions during my time at Iowa State.