Luca Macesanu
I am Graduate Researcher at the Center for Robotics and Embodied Intelligence at NYU, where I am pursuing my masters degree in Robotics and Mechatronics. My focus is on mobile manipulation and long horizon task and motion planning, but I enjoy everything from hardware to cloud computing. In my off time I love teaching, and am always looking for opportnities to tutor!
832-226-9324
Research and Publications
CRAVER: Curious Robotic Audio-Visual Exploration and Representation
Luca Macesanu, Boueny Folefack, Samik Singh, Ruchira Ray, Ben Abbatematteo, Roberto Martín-Martín
Decision Pending for ICRA 2026
RoboArena: Distributed Real-World Evaluation of Generalist Robot Policies
Pranav Atreya, Karl Pertsch, Tony Lee, Moo Jin Kim, Arhan Jain, Artur Kuramshin, Clemens Eppner, Cyrus Neary, Edward Hu, Fabio Ramos, Jonathan Tremblay, Kanav Arora, Kirsty Ellis, Luca Macesanu, Matthew Leonard, Meedeum Cho, Ozgur Aslan, Shivin Dass, Jie Wang, Xingfang Yuan, Xuning Yang, Abhishek Gupta, Dinesh Jayaraman, Glen Berseth, Kostas Daniilidis, Roberto Martin-Martin, Youngwoon Lee, Percy Liang, Chelsea Finn, Sergey Levine
Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) - 2025
Mixed-Initiative Dialog for Human-Robot Collaboration
Author names omitted for anonymous submission.
Decision Pending for ICRA 2026
Projects
Generative AI Agents for Automated Data Analysis
Won Best Senior Design Project Spring 2025
Capstone Project for the Software Engineering Degree
Two Step Chess Puzzles Using Convolutional LSTMs
Final project for ECE 460J - Data Science Lab
Super Mario Bros Using Proximal Policy Optimization
Final Project for CS 363M - Principles of Machine Learning
Maraschino Machine
Final Project for ME 350R - Robot Mechanism Design
https://cloud.wikis.utexas.edu/wiki/spaces/RMD/pages/336497024/18+-+Maraschino+Machine
Gesture Controlled Mouse using Google's Mediapipe
Personal Project
Professional Experience
NYU Center for Robotics and Embodied Intelligence
August 2025 – Present
Graduate Researcher in the AI4CE Lab
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Currently developing a realtime semantic SLAM system for mobile manipulation in volatile environments.
UT Robot Interactive Intelligence Lab
August 2023 – August 2025
Undergraduate Researcher / Lead Robot Learning TA
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First authored a paper on Curiosity based Audio-Visual Exploration for efficient online learning.
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Developed a perception pipeline for occupancy mapping, object segmentation, and annotation.
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Created a manipulation system to sample ML-selected points from the perception pipe with sub-cm precision.
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX June 2024 – August 2024
Student Analyst in the Defense and Intelligence Solutions Department
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Applied Intel’s Integrated Performance Primitives to accelerate SwRI’s Direction Finding algorithm.
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Designed a software interface to integrate RTL-SDR receivers into SwRI’s flagship signal prosecution system.
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Interfaced with more than a dozen subject matter experts to update critical systems for future development.
Applied Research Laboratories, Austin, TX June 2023 – August 2023
Summer Honors Intern
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Trained a Dynamic Multi-Scale Voxel Flow Network using PyTorch for next frame prediction on sonar data.
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Processed data using trigonometric transformations, amplitude gain control, and entropy-based outlier rejection.
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Presented research results at multiple stages of the development process and implemented supervisor feedback.
Texas Inventionworks, Austin, TX January 2023 – June 2024
Projects Lead
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Directed 300+ students across 50+ teams in UT’s first Combat Robotics Competition.
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Expanded logistic capacity to support more than 50 new student led engineering projects.
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Negotiated with full time leadership to acquire funding for student-built combat robots.
Teaching
Robot Learning - Freshman Research Initiative
Lead Teaching Assistant
As a TA I led office hours to help improve student comprehension and built confidence working on real 7 degree of freedom Sawyer robots. I covered topics such as linear algebra for robotics, optics, classical machine learning, and reinforcement learning. In my 3 semesters I also mentored the following FRI projects:
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Simulated Heirarchical Long Horizon Planning using LLMs
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Learning Dynamics Models using Sawyer Arm
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Throwing using Predictive Dynamics Models
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Extending the TeleMoma Interface to the Sawyer Arm
Texas Robo Rumble
Founder
In my second year at UT I founded its first combat robotics event. To encourage fledgeling engineers to get their hands dirty I held seminars on mechanical design, electronics, and strategy fundamentals. The second semester of the event the Mechanical Engineering department ran it as their senior design competition, and I was invited by Dr.Rylander and Dr.Tilton to guest lecture at their senior design classes on combat robotics. TRR is now a semesterly event for all UT students, with mechanical engineers competing mandatory as part of their introductory class.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Technical Director
At UT's largest engineering organization (totalling over 800 students) I ran events meant to built technical competency and get hands on experience. This included python programming camps, leatherworking, robot arm creation, arduino programming, soldering, engine building, and much more. It was during my last year as Technical Director that I founded Texas Robo Rumble, partially in my quest to provide ever more engaging events for ASME's members.
Introduction to Embedded Systems
Tutor - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
My first job at UT was tutoring freshman on Assembly and C programming for the Texas Instruments TM4C embedded systems platform. I did both one on one and group tutoring, covering topics like initialization rituals, state machines, and hardware interfacing.