Nathan Christopher Tsoi
Postdoctoral Fellow
Texas Robotics, University of Texas at Austin
I am a full-stack robotics researcher specializing in human-robot interaction and physical AI. My research connects embodiment, simulation, and coadaptation through learning-based systems that enable robots to complete tasks reliably while actively modeling latent human states (such as trust, perceived competence, comfort, and satisfaction) to positively shape human-robot interactions. Currently I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in Computer Science at UT Austin, I earned my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Yale University, where I introduced novel simulation platforms and evaluation frameworks for Human-Robot Interaction. Previously, I built AI and software systems as a Research Engineer at the Stanford AI Lab and a Senior Software Engineer at Sequoia Capital.
Education
Ph.D., Computer Science
Yale University, New Haven, CT
2025
M.Phil., Computer Science
Yale University, New Haven, CT
2023
M.S., Computer Science
Yale University, New Haven, CT
2021
B.S., Computer Science
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA
2010
Employment
Aug 2025 - Present
Postdoctoral Fellow
Texas Robotics, University of Texas at Austin
Oct 2017 - Aug 2019
Research Engineer
Stanford AI Group, Stanford Vision and Learning Lab
Dec 2015 - Aug 2019
Senior Software Engineer
Sequoia Capital
Jan 2011 - Dec 2015
Systems Developer
Sequoia Capital
Awards
2025
NSF I-Corps Customer Discovery Program - Participant at Yale Venture Lab
2021-22
Nathan Hale Associates: Teresa and Joshy Joseph Scholar
2021
HRI 2021 Pioneer
2021
HRI 2021 Best Paper Nominee
For the work: Challenges Deploying Robots During a Pandemic: An Effort to Fight Social Isolation Among Children
For the work: Challenges Deploying Robots During a Pandemic: An Effort to Fight Social Isolation Among Children
2020
HAI 2020 Best Poster Award - Runner Up
For the work: SEAN: Social Environment for Autonomous Navigation
For the work: SEAN: Social Environment for Autonomous Navigation
2019
Alan J. Perlis Graduate Fellowship Recipient
Conference and Journal Publications
* Indicates equal contribution2026
Nathan Tsoi*, Michael J. Munje*, Tejas Oberoi, Rishab Maheshwari, Pengen Zheng, Tanush Chauhan, Peter Stone, and Joydeep Biswas
Proceedings of The 10th Conference on Robot Learning
2026
Rwik Rana, Jesse Quattrociocchi, Christian Ellis, Nathan Tsoi, Garrett Warnell, and Joydeep Biswas
Proceedings of The 10th Conference on Robot Learning
2026
Maximilian Diehl, Nathan Tsoi, Gustavo Chavez, Karinne Ramirez-Amaro, and Marynel Vázquez
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
2026
Nathan Tsoi, Eric Hsiung, Masayuki Yamazaki, Swarat Chaudhuri, Peter Stone, and Joydeep Biswas
Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems
2025
Qiping Zhang*, Nathan Tsoi*, Mofeed Nagib, Booyeon Choi, Jie Tan, Hao-Tien Lewis Chiang, and Marynel Vázquez
ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
2025
Anthony Francis, Claudia Pérez-D'Arpino, Chengshu Li, Fei Xia, Alexandre Alahi, Rachid Alami, Aniket Bera, Abhijat Biswas, Joydeep Biswas, Rohan Chandra, Hao-Tien Lewis Chiang, Michael Everett, Sehoon Ha, Justin Hart, Jonathan P. How, Haresh Karnan, Tsang-Wei Edward Lee, Luis J. Manso, Reuth Mirsky, Sören Pirk, Phani Teja Singamaneni, Peter Stone, Ada V. Taylor, Peter Trautman, Nathan Tsoi, Marynel Vázquez, Xuesu Xiao, Peng Xu, Naoki Yokoyama, Alexander Toshev, and Roberto Martín-Martín
ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
2024
Nathan Tsoi, Rachel Sterneck, Xuan Zhao, and Marynel Vázquez
ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
2024
Nathan Tsoi, Jessica Romero, and Marynel Vázquez
Companion of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
2023
Qiping Zhang*, Nathan Tsoi*, and Marynel Vázquez
Companion of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
2023
Kate Candon, Jesse Chen, Yoony Kim, Zoe Hsu, Nathan Tsoi, and Marynel Vázquez
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems
2022
Kate Candon, Zoe Hsu, Yoony Kim, Jesse Chen, Nathan Tsoi, and Marynel Vázquez
Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction
2022
Nathan Tsoi, Kate Candon, Deyuan Li, Yofti Milkessa, and Marynel Vázquez
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems
2022
Nathan Tsoi, Alec Xiang, Peter Yu, Samuel S. Sohn, Greg Schwartz, Subashri Ramesh, Mohamed Hussein, Anjali W. Gupta, Mubbasir Kapadia, and Marynel Vázquez
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
2021
Nathan Tsoi, Mohamed Hussein, Olivia Fugikawa, J.D. Zhao, and Marynel Vázquez
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
2021
Nathan Tsoi and Marynel Vázquez
Companion of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
2021
Nathan Tsoi, Joe Connolly, Emmanuel Adéníran, Amanda Hansen, Kaitlynn Taylor Pineda, Timothy Adamson, Sydney Thompson, Rebecca Ramnauth, Marynel Vázquez, and Brian Scassellati
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
2021
Joe Connolly, Nathan Tsoi, and Marynel Vázquez
Companion of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
2020
Nathan Tsoi, Mohamed Hussein, Jeacy Espinoza, Xavier Ruiz, and Marynel Vázquez
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction
2020
Mason Swofford, John Peruzzi, Nathan Tsoi, Sydney Thompson, Roberto Martín-Martín, Silvio Savarese, and Marynel Vázquez
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
2020
Joe Connolly, Viola Mocz, Nicole Salomons, Joseph Valdez, Nathan Tsoi, Brian Scassellati, and Marynel Vázquez
Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction
2019
Hamid Rezatofighi, Nathan Tsoi, JunYoung Gwak, Amir Sadeghian, Ian Reid, and Silvio Savarese
Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Preprints
2024
Deyuan Li, Taesoo Daniel Lee, Marynel Vázquez, and Nathan Tsoi
arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.20954
2024
Austin Narcomey, Nathan Tsoi, Ruta Desai, and Marynel Vázquez
arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.19795
2023
Alexander Lew, Sydney Thompson, Nathan Tsoi, and Marynel Vázquez
arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.00191
Teaching
2026-Present
Assistant Professor of Practice
2021, 2023
Teaching Fellow
Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, Yale (CPSC484)
2021, 2023
Teaching Fellow
Service
- Reviewer AAAI, CACM, CoRL, HRI, ICRA, IEEE RA-L, IEEE T-RO, IROS, Nature, NeurIPS, RO-MAN, T-HRI
- Co-Organizer Embodied AI Meta-alignment Workshop (AAAI-27)
- Program Committee Member The 17th Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence (EAAI-27, Main Track)
- Program Committee Member The 36th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS 2026)
- Co-Organizer The 5th Workshop on Social Robot Navigation (ICRA 2026)
- Co-Organizer Advances in Social Navigation Workshop (ICRA 2025)
- Co-Organizer Unsolved Problems in Social Navigation Workshop (RSS 2024)
- Co-Organizer Social Robot Navigation: Advances and Evaluation (IROS 2023)
- Co-Organizer SEANavBench Workshop (ICRA 2022)
- Web Chair The 18th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2023)
- Graduate Representative Department Climate & Diversity Committee (2023)
Invited Talks and Presentations
May 2026
Guest lecture at UCLA in Prof. Chen Tang's course: Human-Centered Autonomy for Mobility Systems
Mar 2026
Lightning talk at the Texas Symposium on Machine Learning, Responsible AI & Robotics.
Feb 2026
"From Tools to Teammates: Aligning Robot Learning with Human Perception," Austin Robotics & AI Meetup, Austin, TX.
May 2025
Invited Research Talk, Interactive Robotics Group (Host: Prof. Nicholas Roy), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Jan 2025
Invited Research Talk, Utah Learning and Robotics Lab (Host: Prof. Daniel Brown), University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT.
Jan 2025
Invited Speaker, Rising Stars / Faculty Pathways Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
Jul 2024
Invited Speaker, Workshop on Data Generation for Robotics (RSS 2024), and Socially Perceptive Computing Lab (Host: Prof. Hayley Hung), TU Delft, Delft, Netherlands.
Mar 2024
Invited Research Talk, Collaborative AI and Robotics Lab (Host: Prof. Bradley Hayes), University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO.
Extracurricular
2026-Present
Children's Program Volunteer, Trinity Church
Austin, TX
2019-2025
Volunteer Teacher, Trinity Baptist Children's Program
New Haven, CT
2017
Embedded Platforms and Open Source Contributions (Betaflight, Px4, Omnibus flight controller)