Nakul Gopalan

Nakul Gopalan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence at Arizona State University, where he leads the Logos Robotics Lab. His research lies at the intersection of robot learning and language grounding, with a focus on developing algorithms that enable robots to learn from demonstrations and natural language descriptions. His work explores how combining structured task representations, hierarchical reinforcement learning, and planning can improve the usability of robots in human-centered environments such as homes and offices. He is particularly interested in teaching robots complex, multi-step tasks through intuitive human interaction, including language-based instruction and demonstration-driven learning. His research has appeared in leading robotics and AI venues such as RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, ICAPS, and AAAI, and he has been actively involved in the robotics community through conference organization, workshop leadership, and professional service. Since joining ASU in 2022, he has been building research at the intersection of human-robot collaboration, language understanding, and robot learning, with an emphasis on practical deployment and real-world interaction.