CV

Access a pdf version of my CV here

Research Interests

Embodied AI, Robotics, Computer Vision

Education

Johns Hopkins University – Baltimore, M.D. (Expected May 2027)

• B.S. Computer Science, Applied Mathematics & Statistics, Robotics

Awards/Honors

• Dean’s List, Fall’23, Spring’24, Fall’24, Johns Hopkins University
• National Grand Prize, 2020, Stanley Black & Decker Innovation Generation Challenge ($15,000 prize)
• Three prizes at the HopHacks 2023 Hackathon: Patient Safety Technology Challenge Winner ($750), FFU New Venture Prize ($500), Overall third place ($256)
• FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) Alliance Champion, Programming Team Captain

Publications

• PartInstruct: Part-level Instruction Following for Fine-grained Robot Manipulation

  @inproceedings{yinpartinstruct, title={PartInstruct: Part-level Instruction Following for Fine-grained Robot Manipulation}, author={Yin, Yifan and Han, Zhengtao and Aarya, Shivam and Xu, Shuhang and Wang, Jianxin and Peng, Jiawei and Wang, Angtian and Yuille, Alan and Shu, Tianmin}, booktitle={7th Robot Learning Workshop: Towards Robots with Human-Level Abilities}, year={2025} }

• Goma: Proactive embodied cooperative communication via goal-oriented mental alignment

  @inproceedings{ying2024goma, title={Goma: Proactive embodied cooperative communication via goal-oriented mental alignment}, author={Ying, Lance and Jha, Kunal and Aarya, Shivam and Tenenbaum, Joshua B and Torralba, Antonio and Shu, Tianmin}, booktitle={2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)}, pages={7099--7106}, year={2024}, organization={IEEE} }

• SIFToM: Robust Spoken Instruction Following through Theory of Mind

  @article{ying2024siftom, title={SIFToM: Robust Spoken Instruction Following through Theory of Mind}, author={Ying, Lance and Liu, Jason Xinyu and Aarya, Shivam and Fang, Yizirui and Tellex, Stefanie and Tenenbaum, Joshua B and Shu, Tianmin}, journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.10849}, year={2024} }

• Towards Increasing the Robustness of Predictive Steering-Control Autonomous Navigation Systems Against Dash Cam Image Angle Perturbations Due to Pothole Encounters

  @article{aarya2023towards, title={Towards Increasing the Robustness of Predictive Steering-Control Autonomous Navigation Systems Against Dash Cam Image Angle Perturbations Due to Pothole Encounters}, author={Aarya, Shivam}, journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.03959}, year={2023} }

Service

• Reviewer, WRL@ICLR (2025)

Experiences

Undergraduate Embodied AI Researcher, Johns Hopkins University (Jan 2024 - Present)

• Conducting research under Prof. Tianmin Shu in the SCAI lab.
• Contributions led to two publications co-authored with Prof. Josh Tenenbaum and Prof. Antonio Torralba.

Co-Founder, Stealth Startup 2 – Spark Accelerator, Pava Center (Oct 2024 - Present)

• Developing AI-powered solutions for startup coaching.

Co-Founder, Stealth Startup 1 – Spark Accelerator, Pava Center (Jul 2024 - Present)

• Building AI-driven tools for pre-medical students.

Course Assistant, Johns Hopkins University (Jan 2025 - Present)

• Assisting Prof. Simon Leonard in teaching Algorithms for Sensor-Based Robotics (EN.601.463/663).

High School Student Researcher, The University of Memphis (Nov 2021 - May 2023)

• Researched autonomous steering control algorithms for pothole avoidance as a member of the Socio-Technical Autonomous Resilient Systems (STARS) Lab.
• Led to a publication on autonomous vehicle navigation and control.

Projects

HopHacks, Johns Hopkins University (Sep 2023)

• Developed a computer vision AI model for smartphones to generate alerts if any item is left in a patient’s body during surgery by mistake.
• Most decorated project with three prizes worth $1,506.

Head Pose Angle Estimation for Game Controller, University of Memphis (Jan 2022 - May 2022)

• Trained a computer vision AI model to estimate head pose angles of users from a webcam so they can use head movements to play games, especially for those with limited hand mobility.

Psychoanalytic Prediction Modeling, Stanford University (Jun 2022 - Aug 2022)

• Created statistical data mining models of psychopathology data to phenotype patients and predict the effect of pharmacological treatment.

Robotics Logger, WSHS Robotics (Sep 2021 - Present)

• Developed and deployed both cloud and client side to log attendance of robotics team members; In use for 3+ years.

Coursework

Johns Hopkins University, Undergraduate (Aug 2023 - Present)

Spring 2025

• Differential Equations and Applications
• Robot Devices, Kinematics, Dynamics, and Control
• Introduction to Computational Mathematics
• Intro Algorithms
• Machine Learning

Fall 2024

• Introduction to Fiction & Poetry II
• Intro to Optimization
• Mathematical Statistics
• The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Automation
• Algorithms for Sensor-Based Robotics

Spring 2024

• Linear Algebra
• Introduction to Fiction & Poetry I
• Probability
• Computer System Fundamentals
• Disinformation Self-Defense

Fall 2023

• Calculus III
• Introduction to Deep Learning for Medical Imaging
• Intermediate Programming
• Data Structures
• Mathematical Foundations for Computer Science

Stanford University, Summer Session (Jun 2022 - Aug 2022)

Summer 2022

• Programming Abstractions
• Client-Side Internet Technologies
• Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calculus, and Modern Applications
• Data Mining and Analysis

University of Memphis, Dual Enrollment (Aug 2021 - May 2022)

Spring 2022

• Intro to Artificial Intelligence

Fall 2021

• Discrete Structures

Technical Skills

• Programming: Unix, Neovim, Nix, Python, ROS, Java, C, C++, JS, HTML, CSS, R, MatLab, Julia