About Me

I am Prithu Pareek, a recent graduate from Carnegie Mellon University with a major in Electrical and Computer Engineering. During my time at CMU, I served as the President of the Undergraduate Student Senate. Hailing from the Washington, D.C. area, my passion lies in creating a more equitable and accessible world for individuals with disabilities through innovative assistive technologies and policies. This drive is deeply rooted in my personal experiences living with muscular dystrophy.

Throughout my academic journey, I had the privilege to engage in research focused on human-robot interaction and assistive robotics at CMU and the Naval Research Laboratories in D.C. One of my recent accomplishments involved developing a novel motion planning algorithm that enables multi-armed robots to perform tasks with enhanced safety and efficiency in uncertain environments. Prior to this, I dedicated my efforts to researching treatments for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at Boston Children's Hospital.

Advocacy is a core aspect of my character, and I actively participated in various initiatives while serving as a Student Senator. In my role as Chair of the Senate Business Affairs Committee, I spearheaded an initiative to improve the working conditions for hourly student workers and successfully campaigned for a raise in the campus-wide minimum wage from $8.25 to $10 an hour. Additionally, I advocated for the establishment of a campus-wide day of service holiday on Election Day.

I am currently working as a motion planning engineer at Aurora, an autonomous vehicle company based in the Bay Area. This role aligns perfectly with my interests and aspirations, allowing me to continue contributing to the advancement of autonomous technologies.

Overall, my experiences at CMU and my commitment to making a positive impact have shaped my path and instilled in me an unwavering dedication to driving positive change in the world.

Contact Details

Prithu Pareek
(240) 565-9094
prithupareek@icloud.com

2023 Carnegie Mellon University Commencement Address

Education

Carngie Mellon University

Bachelor of Science• May 2023

Major in Electrical & Computer Engineering

Sidwell Friends School

High School Diploma• June 2019

Skills

Programming Languages: Java, HTML/CSS/JS, Python, C#, C++, NodeJS
Frameworks/Libraries: ReactJS, SQL, OpenCV, Tensorflow
Laboratory: PCR, Birefringence Analysis, Western Blot
Software: MS Office, Git, Logic Pro, Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator, Fusion 360, Final Cut Pro, Altium Designer, Gazebo, ROS

Work

Motion Planning Software Engineer

Aurora Innovation• August 2023 - present

Undergraduate Student Senator, Senate President, Business Affairs Committee Chair

Carnegie Mellon University• April 2020 - May 2022 2022

• Advocated for the students to the admin, drafted and implemented policies benefiting of the student body while serving as the President of the Undergraduate Student Senate (2022 - present)
• Former Chair of the Business Affairs Committee tasked with overseeing transportation, housing, dining, and campus facilities (2021-2022)
• Member of the University Leadership Student Advisory Council (2022 – present)
• Member of the University Student Affairs Council led by Dean of Students Gina Casalegno (2021 – 2022)
• Member of the Hourly Student Worker Working Group tasked with improving the experience and wages of students employed by Carnegie Mellon and culminating in an increase in the campus-wide minimum wage (2021 - present)
• Member of the Parking and Transportation Advisory Committee (2021 - 2022) where I successfully advocated for students to provide parking accommodations and financial assistance to those with disabilities and demonstrated financial need
• Drafted, passed, and implementing proposals overhauling CMU’s shuttle services and piloting all-gender housing
• Led an initiative to provide members of the campus community with digital access to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Collected feedback from community stakeholders on various projects aimed at improving campus dining including increasing sustainability, improving the meal plan system, and increasing off-campus dining partner locations

Motion Planning Intern

Aurora Innovation• May 2022 - August 2022

• Conceptualized and introduced new logic which enables the autonomous vehicle to perform lane changes into upcoming splitting lanes in situations where the optimal route is blocked by construction
• Modified several portions of the strategy planning architecture to enable better performance for lane selection tasks in complex construction scenarios

Research Intern

United States Naval Research Laboratory• May 2021 - May 2022

• Discovered a breakthrough solution for bimanual manipulation in dual-armed robots with use cases in strategic operations on land, underwater, and in space
• Created a simulator for the DRC HUBO robot using ROS in Gazebo and RViz with MoveIt integration for controls
• Implemented a novel, PRM-based, MoveIt and OMPL integrated, dynamic motion planner enabling the HUBO robot to asynchronously plan and execute motions on its two robot arms and around moving obstacles

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute• May 2020 - May 2022

• Simulated humans and human motion in Gazebo to test a robot guide for the visually impaired in public spaces
• Designed and implemented a full AI based conversational pipeline in ROS - from speech recognition to synthesis - to enable the robot to communicate verbally with people and keep track of the context of the conversation
• Co-authored a poster published at the ACM Conference on Computer and Accessibility (SIGACCESS) that compared the quality/safety of different planner trajectories for a guide robot approaching a user with a visual impairment

Research Intern

Harvard Medical / Boston Children's Hospital • July - August 2018

• Initiated a study of a novel animal model of TPM3 Congenital Myopathies, at the lab of Dr. Lou Kunkel
• Conducted genotyping of mutated fish and birefringence analysis to find the phenotypic response to the genetic mutation and determine if the model is a good representation of the human condition

Research Intern

Harvard Medical / Boston Children's Hospital • June - August 2017

• Worked in the lab of Dr. Lou Kunkel to study treatments for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in animal models
• Carried out trials of serotonin modulators on zebrafish animal models resulting in the conclusion that they were not effective methods of treatment

Web and Graphic Design Intern

Pixtory - Bangalore, India • July - December 2016

• Built a responsive website and web app while experiencing a startup environment
• Contacted and onboarded college professors as new contributors to the app

Intern

InMobi - Bangalore, India • July 2015

• Built adaptors gathering data from APIs as part of the Miip app development team
• Learnt the steps needed to take an app from idea to execution

Publications

Tan, X. Z., Carter, E. J., Pareek, P., & Steinfeld, A. (2022). Group Formation in Multi-Robot Human Interaction During Service Scenarios. The 24th International ACM SIGCHI Conference on Multimodal Interaction, 159–169. https://doi.org/10.1145/3536221.3556583

Limprayoon, J. “Fern,” Pareek, P., Tan, X. Z., & Steinfeld, A. (2021). Robot Trajectories When Approaching a User with a Visual Impairment. The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3441852.3476538

Spinazzola, J. M., Lambert, M. R., Gibbs, D. E., Conner, J. R., Krikorian, G. L., Pareek, P., Rago, C., & Kunkel, L. M. (2020). Effect of serotonin modulation on dystrophin-deficient zebrafish. Biology Open, bio.053363. https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.053363