DR. Christian Hubicki

Robotics Professor · Lab Director · Science Communicator · Speaker

News

  • September 25th, 2025. Christian and his PhD students, Nycholas Gierhan and Vivek Annem, presented at the 2025 Annual Review of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Center of Excellence: AEROMORPH in Gainesville, Florida.

  • September 4th-5th, 2025. Christian livestreamed and presented at the NSF Integrative Movement Science Institute (IMSI) Summer Institute Capstone Symposium at the University of California at Irvine. Check out Day 1 and Day 2 of the symposium of students presenting their work at the cutting edge of biomechanics research!

  • September 2nd, 2025. Christian’s seminar on “How to Simulate Movement: From First Concepts to Code” is now live on YouTube!

  • August 29th, 2025. The “Ask Dr. Hubicki” podcast for Summer 2025 is up! Watch Christian answer all manner of questions with award-winning podcast host, Rob Cesternino. Watch us cover topics ranging from the environmental impact of AI, to the mathematics of Plinko, to the concept of a “mondegreen.”

  • August 29th-31st, 2025. Dr. Hubicki gave three invited talks at DragonCon, the world’s largest multimedia pop-culture convention, in Atlanta, GA. Talks include “Robot Science or Robot Fiction”, “This Year in Humanoid Robots 2025”, and “The Math that Makes Robots Think.” Stay tuned for video!

  • August 28th, 2025. Dr. Hubicki gave a robotics research seminar at Clark Atlanta University (CAU) in Atlanta, Georgia entitled “Robots that Think on their Feet.” Stay tuned for Video!

  • August 25th, 2025. Business Insider interviewed and quoted Dr. Hubicki for their article on humanoid robots “Tesla shifted its Optimus training strategy — and it's using a familiar playbook” found here.

  • August 23rd, 2025. Dr. Hubicki joined Daniel Shiffman of the wildly popular educational Youtube Channel, The Coding Train, to livestream a coding seminar on how to make robots run. Watch the stream here and thanks Dan for a fun and informative time!

  • August 21st, 2025. Dr. Hubicki gave a robotics virtual workshop to the NSF Integrative Movement Science Institute (NSF-IMSI) entitled “How to Simulate Movement: From First Concepts to Code.” Stay tuned for Video!

  • August 13th, 2025. Optimal Robotics Laboratory PhD Student, Vivek Annem, presented our jointly authored paper at the International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE-CASE) in Los Angeles, CA, titled “Parameter-Regression MPC (PaReMPC): Experiments and Extensions of a Broadly Adaptive Approach for SISO Robotic Applications.”

  • August 11th, 2025. Dr. Hubicki was interviewed by Ellie in Space, a space news YouTube channel, about the challenges of putting humanoid robots in space. Watch the interview here!

  • August 1st, 2025. Three of Dr. Hubicki’s graduate students have officially walked for their commencement. Congratulations to Master’s degree graduate, Dylan Ma, Dr. Adwait Mane and Dr. Tianze Wang for completing their theses over years of work in the Optimal Robotics Laboratory.

  • July 3rd, 2025. Congratulations to Adwait Mane, a PhD student in the Optimal Robotics Laboratory and advisee of Dr. Hubicki, for successfully defending his thesis titled “Curvature-aware Model-based Planning and Control for Wheel-Leg and Track-Leg Ground Robots.”

  • July 3rd, 2025. Congratulations to Dylan Ma, a Master’s student in the Optimal Robotics Laboratory and advisee of Dr. Hubicki, on successfully defending his thesis titled “2D Balancing Control of a Unicycling Biped via Legged Locomotion.”

  • May 28th, 2025. New Paper Accepted! The Optimal Robotics Lab’s paper by Vivek Annem, “Parameter-Regression MPC (PaReMPC): Experiments and Extensions of a Broadly Adaptive Approach for SISO Robotic Applications,“ was accepted for publication at the 2025 IEEE 21st International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.

  • May 28th, 2025. New Paper Accepted! The Optimal Robotics Lab’s paper by Dylan Ma, “2D Balancing Controller for a Unicycling Biped via Legged Locomotion,“ was accepted for publication at the 2025 IEEE 21st International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering.

  • May 28th, 2025. CBS announced that Dr. Hubicki will return as a castaway on the reality competition series, Survivor, for their landmark 50th season. Survivor 50 will air in spring 2026.

  • May 19th-23rd, 2025. Congratulations to David Jay, Tianze Wang, and Muhammad Saud Ul Hassan for presenting three papers from our Optimal Robotics Laboratory at the 2025 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (IEEE-ICRA).

  • April 24th, 2025. Congratulations to Tianze Wang, a PhD student in the Optimal Robotics Laboratory and advisee of Dr. Hubicki, for successfully defending his thesis titled “Real-Time Dynamic Bipedal Motion Planning and Control with Intelligent Obstacle Avoidance.”

  • January 27th, 2025. New Paper Accepted! The Optimal Robotics Lab’s paper by David Jay and Jacob Hackett, “WaLTER: A Wheel and Leg Tumbling Expedition Robot,“ was accepted for publication at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA).

  • January 27th, 2025. New Paper Accepted! The Optimal Robotics Lab’s paper by Muhammad Saud Ul Hassan, “Single-Stage Optimization of Open-loop Stable Limit Cycles with Smooth, Symbolic Derivatives,“ was accepted for publication at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA).

  • January 27th, 2025. New Paper Accepted! The Optimal Robotics Lab’s paper by David Jay and Jacob Hackett, “Dynamic Bipedal MPC with Foot-level Obstacle Avoidance and Adjustable Step Timing,“ was accepted for publication at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA).

  • January 6th, 2025. The Optimal Robotics Lab’s Jacob Hackett presented our work on “Predictive simulation of quadrupedal gaits using proximal policy optimization” at the 2025 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA.