Michael McDonald

Michael completed his undergraduate studies at UC Berkeley with a double major in computer science and applied mathematics. Broadly, his interests cover value alignment in multi-step/multi-objective task scenarios and how robots can learn to efficiently aid humans in such scenarios.

As an undergraduate student, Michael researched under Professor Pieter Abbeel with Dylan Hadfield-Menell on task and motion planning algorithms – initially for a laundry-robot exhibit for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London meant to examine the feasibility and challenges of integrating robotic agents into everyday life. That work then served as foundation for designing imitation-learning algorithms for accomplishing multi-objective plans with normally intractable cost functions.

This coming autumn Michael will begin his master’s here at Berkeley in the EECS 5th year M.S. program, advised by Professor Anca Dragan.