Julio Ojalvo is currently pursuing a PhD degree at the University of Miami Computer Science Department. He joined the RoboCanes lab in 2022 and focuses his research on synthetic data generation for object detection in mobile robotics. His work centers on developing high-quality simulation pipelines that generate diverse, realistic training data to strengthen perception models and reduce reliance on costly real-world data collection. By exploring techniques such as advanced compositing, domain randomization, and physically informed rendering, he aims to improve the robustness and generalizability of object detection systems operating in complex, dynamic environments.

Julio’s broader research interests span computer vision, robot autonomy, and the challenges of bridging the sim-to-real gap. He is particularly motivated by the problem of how mobile robots can reliably perceive and interpret the world using limited onboard resources. Through his efforts, he contributes to the lab’s mission of creating scalable, data-driven approaches for next-generation autonomous platforms.

Shengxin (Anthony) Luo is a Ph. D. student and Dean's Fellow at the University of Miami Computer Science department, where he has been since 2016 as an undergraduate student. He has extensive knowledge in mathematics and has been awarded both Departmental Honor of Mathematics and Outstanding Senior in Mathematics from the Math department at UM. He has been a researcher in the RoboCanes lab since 2019, and his current research tasks are to program autonomous robots to perform complex and stable motion planning by utilizing concepts from algebraic and differential geometry. He participated in RoboCup Sydney DSPL league competition and is the designated team leader for the upcoming RoboCup 2021. He was also involved in several publications by the RoboCanes research group.

Christine Lisetti's long-term research goal is to create digital and engaging socially intelligent agents that can interact naturally with humans via expressive multi-modalities in a variety of contexts involving socio-emotional content (e.g. empathetic health coach, social companion, cyber-therapy, intelligent tutoring system, serious/educational game). Her research therefore lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction, affective computing (she co-founded the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing), artificial intelligence, emotion and personality theories, social communication, and of disciplines providing the socio-emotional content where VISAGEs can be particularly helpful (e.g. healthcare, education).