Dedicated AI/​ML, Computer Vision and Human-Robot Interaction researcher devoted to pushing the boundaries of Artificial Intelligence and ensuring its constructive influence on human society. Specialising in Continual Machine Learning and Human-Robot Interaction, my interests lie in fostering the development of versatile and adaptive systems tailored for dynamic real-world environments. My research is focused on advancing sensory perception and behavioural learning in autonomous agents, with a strong emphasis on promoting fairness and equity. I boast of a track record of 25+ publications with 600+ citations (H-index=16) resulting from a number of successful interdisciplinary collaborations achieved by engaging with experts from diverse fields. Committed to leveraging AI/​ML and Robotics for innovation, I am dedicated to expanding the boundaries of how AI and robotics can help address real-world challenges and improve daily human life.

Professional Experience
Senior AI Scientist, Medtronic Digital Surgery⁠

Senior AI/​Data Scientist working on medical image analyses and digital surgery solutions.

May 2024 – presentLondon, UK
Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Cambridge⁠

Postdoc researcher at the Affective Intelligence and Robotics (AFAR) Lab investigating Federated Continual Learning solutions for Affective and Social Robotics. Postdoc project funded by Google under the GIG funding scheme.

Oct 2022 – May 2024Cambridge, UK
Research Assistant (HiWi), Universität Hamburg⁠

Worked at the Technical Aspects of Multimodal Systems (TAMS) group (Apr 2016 - Mar 2017) and Knowledge Technology (WTM) group (Apr 2017 - Sept 2018). Research focussed on developing ML solutions for 3D pose estimation (TAMS) and Multi-modal Affect Perception for Social Robots (WTM). Collaborated on projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under project Cross-modal Learning (TRR 169).

Apr 2016 – Sep 2018Hamburg, Germany
Project Manager, Chitkara University⁠

Developed and managed industry-academia collaboration projects ranging from Industrial Automation, IoT, AI/​ML, Mobility and Big Data, partnering with industry leaders and government agencies for SME development. Work deliverables also included delivering skill-building sessions for undergraduates on programming for IoT devices such as Arduino and Intel Atom boards.

Sep 2014 – Mar 2016Chandigarh, India
Centre Head, North India Operations, Steinbeis India⁠

Designed, implemented and managed Technology Transfer and Skill-building Projects for Industrial Automation of SMEs in North India.

Dec 2013 – Aug 2014Delhi, India
Systems Engineer, Education and Research, Infosys Limited⁠

Provided Project consultation and internal employee training on Programming Languages, Databases and Software Engineering. Designed coursewares for Mainframes (COBOL, CICS) and Relational Databases. Conducted training sessions for new recruits (trainees) on several topics, including OOPS, SQL and Software Engineering principles.

Sep 2011 – Dec 2013Mysore, India
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Education
Doctor of Philosophy (Computer Science), University of Cambridge⁠

Research focussed on developing (deep) Lifelong and Continual Machine Learning solutions for personalised and continual perception and context-appropriate behavioural learning for robots. PhD research funded by the EPSRC International Doctoral Scholarship⁠ and Cambridge Computer Laboratory Premium Research Studentship⁠.

Thesis: Continual Learning for Affective Robotics

Oct 2018 – Sep 2022Cambridge, UK

Supervised by Prof Hatice Gunes

Masters of Science (Intelligent and Adaptive Systems), Universität Hamburg

Research focussed on End-to-End Deep Learning solutions for Multi-modal Perception and Behavioural Learning for Social Robots.

Thesis: Modelling Affective Cores for Behaviour Modulation in Social Robots

Oct 2015 – Mar 2018Hamburg, Germany

Grade: 1.0 mit Auszeichnung bestanden (Distinction).

Bachelors of Technology (Computer Science and Engineering), Punjab Technical University⁠

Excelled in Course Modules on Software Engineering, Relational Databases, Object-oriented Programming and Expert Systems. Final Year Project: Developed and deployed a problem ticket management system for R Systems, India⁠ (1000+ employees) for sys-admins to record and resolve IT-related issues.

Aug 2007 – May 2011Chandigarh, India

Teaching Experience
Teaching Assistant, University of Cambridge

Assisted in Undergraduate/​Graduate modules on Mobile Robot Systems (2019, 2020), Interaction Design (2019, 2020), Affective Computing (2020, 2024) and Further Human-Computer Interaction (2022).

2019 – presentCambridge, UK
Course Supervisions, University of Cambridge

Designed and conducted Cambridge Undergraduate/​Graduate supervisions on Interaction Design, Further-HCI and Affective Computing.

2019 – presentCambridge, UK
MPhil Supervisions, University of Cambridge

Co-Supervised Cambridge MPhil student projects on:

  • Continual Reinforcement Learning for Social Robot Behavioural Learning
  • 2020 – presentCambridge, UK
  • Latent Generative Replay for Resource-Efficient Continual Learning
  • Learning Socially Appropriate Behaviours for Humanoid Service Robots
  • Skills
    Machine Learning|Computer Vision|Deep Learning|Continual Learning|Bio-inspired AI|Affective Computing|Multi-modal Learning|Federated Learning|Human-Robot Interaction|Robotics|Reinforcement Learning|Robot Platforms — Pepper, Nao, NICO, iCub|ROS/ROS2|Python|Jupyter|Pandas|Numpy|OpenCV|C++|Git|Agile Development|ML Frameworks — PyTorch, Tensorflow, Keras, Scikit-Learn, Flower|Neural Networks — CNNs, RNNs, LSTMs, CapsuleNets, Transformers|Generative Models — AutoEncoders, GANs, VAEs|Data Visualisation — Matplotlib, Seaborn, Plotly
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    Awards
    Wiseman Award⁠, Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge
    Oct 2022
    DAAD AI-Net Fellowship⁠, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
    Mar 2022
    RSJ/KROS Distinguished Interdisciplinary Research Award (Finalist), IEEE RO-MAN 2021
    Aug 2021
    Best Doctoral Consortium Paper Award, IEEE Face and Gestures 2020
    Nov 2020
    EPSRC International Doctoral Scholarship⁠, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK
    Oct 2018
    Best Graduate Student 2018⁠, Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg
    Jul 2018
    IEEE CIS Travel Award, IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, 2018
    Jul 2018
    DAAD Leistungsstipendium, Universität Hamburg Merit Scholarship for International Students
    Nov 2016
    Conference/Workshop Organization

    Organiser for the Dungeons Neuron and Dialogues workshop to be held at the IEEE International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) 2024

    Sep 2024Glasgow, UK

    Contributing to IEEE ACII 2024 as the Visa and Registration chair.

    Sep 2024Glasgow, UK

    Organiser for the Lifelong Learning and Personalization in Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction (LEAP-HRI) workshop held at the IEEE/​ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2024.

    Mar 2024

    Main organiser for the Causal-HRI: Causal Learning for Human Robot Interaction workshop held at the IEEE/​ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2024.

    Mar 2024Boulder, CO, USA

    Contributed as the Talks Chair for the 1st ContinualAI Un-conference aimed at speeding-up the long desired inclusive and sustainable progress of the Continual Learning community with an open-access, multi-timezone, 24 hours long event.

    Oct 2023Virtual

    Co-organiser for the CLVision: Continual Learning in Computer Vision workshop held at the IEEE /​ CVF Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR) 2020.

    Jun 2020

    Managed volunteer coordinators for the IEEE International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) 2019. Key deliverables included helping schedule and organise the paper and poster presentations, preparing venues and coordinating with the tech-team for the smooth running of the conference.

    Sep 2019Cambridge, UK
    Nikhil Churamani
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    Organiser for the Workshop on Empathy Modelling in Real-World Scenarios: Lessons Learned from the OMG Empathy Prediction Challenge held at the International Conference on Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), 2019.

    May 2019Lille, France

    Organiser for the OMG Empathy Prediction Challenge held in conjunction with the International Conference on Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), 2019.

    May 2019Lille, France
    Outreach and Talks
    Mar 2024Cambridge, UK
    Demonstration : Negotiations with Pepper Robot, Physics Outreach Event for Schools
    Sep 2023Cambridge, UK
    Demonstration: Robots for Wellbeing, Cambridge Festival 2023
    Mar 2023Cambridge, UK
    Dec 2022Ghent, Belgium
    Demonstration: Robots for Wellbeing, Cambridge Festival 2022
    Mar 2022Cambridge, UK
    Seminar: Can Robots have an Emotional Self? Towards Social Robots with Emotions and Personality, McMenemy Seminar, Trinity Hall Cambridge
    May 2019Cambridge, UK
    Organisation: CSAT Organisation for 2019 Undergraduate Admissions, Department of Computer Science and Technology
    Dec 2018Cambridge, UK
    University Service
    Faculty Board Member, Computer Lab, University of Cambridge, PhD Representative
    2019 – 2020Cambridge, UK
    Graduate Students Forum Member, Computer Lab, University of Cambridge, Rainbow Group Representative
    2018 – 2020Cambridge, UK
    MCR Computing Officer, Trinity Hall Cambridge
    2018 – 2020Cambridge, UK
    Research Scholar (Stipend Holder), PIASTA, University of Hamburg
    2017 – 2018Hamburg, Germany
    Examination Board Member, MSc Intelligent Adaptive Systems, University of Hamburg
    2015 – 2018Hamburg, Germany
    Reviewing Responsibilities
    IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing|IEEE Transactions on Multimedia|IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics|IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters|Advanced Robotics|Frontiers in Robotics and AI (Review Editor)|AAAI|IJCAI|ACM ICMI|ACM/IEEE HRI|IEEE RO-MAN|IEEE ICDL-EpiRob|IEEE ICRA|IEEE FG|IEEE ACII|RSS|ICPR|IEEE IROS
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    Publications
    Federated Learning of Socially Appropriate Agent Behaviours in Simulated Home Environments⁠, Workshop on Lifelong Learning and Personalisation in Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction (LEAP-HRI), ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

    Saksham Checker, Nikhil Churamani, and Hatice Gunes

    2024

    Bahar Irfan, Mariacarla Staffa, Andreea Bobu, and Nikhil Churamani

    2024
    Causal-HRI: Causal Learning for Human-Robot Interaction⁠, ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

    Jiaee Cheong, Nikhil Churamani, Luke Guerdan, Tabitha Edith Lee, and Zhao Han, Hatice Gunes

    2024
    Affective Computing for Human-Robot Interaction Research: Four Critical Lessons for the Hitchhiker⁠, IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

    Hatice Gunes, and Nikhil Churamani

    2023

    Nikhil Churamani, Tolga Dimlioglu, German I. Parisi, and Hatice Gunes

    2023
    Latent Generative Replay for Resource-Efficient Continual Learning of Facial Expressions⁠, IEEE 17th International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), 2023

    Samuil Stoychev, Nikhil Churamani, and Hatice Gunes

    2023
    Towards Causal Replay for Knowledge Rehearsal in Continual Learning⁠, AAAI Bridge Program on Continual Causality, 2023

    Nikhil Churamani, Jiaee Cheong, Sinan Kalkan, and Hatice Gunes

    2023

    Nikhil Churamani, Ozgur Kara and Hatice Gunes

    2022
    Learning Socially Appropriate Robo-Waiter Behaviours through Real-Time User Feedback⁠, ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

    Emily McQuillin, Nikhil Churamani, and Hatice Gunes

    2022

    Nikhil Churamani, Pablo Barros, Hatice Gunes, and Stefan Wermter

    2022
    Continual Learning for Affective Robotics: A Proof of Concept for Wellbeing⁠, IEEE International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction Workshops and Demos (ACIIW)

    Nikhil Churamani, Minja Axelsson, Atahan Çaldır, and Hatice Gunes

    2022

    Vincenzo Lomonaco, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Pau Rodriguez, Massimo Caccia et. al.

    2022
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    Minja Axelsson, Nikhil Churamani, Atahan Caldir, and Hatice Gunes

    2022
    AULA-Caps: Lifecycle-Aware Capsule Networks for Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Facial Actions⁠, IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG)

    Nikhil Churamani, Sinan Kalkan, and Hatice Gunes

    2021
    Teleoperated Robot Coaching for Mindfulness Training: A Longitudinal Study⁠, IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

    Indu P. Bodala, Nikhil Churamani, and Hatice Gunes

    Finalist for the RSJ/KROS Distinguished Interdisciplinary Research Award

    2021
    Towards Fair Affective Robotics: Continual Learning for Mitigating Bias in Facial Expression and Action Unit Recognition⁠, Workshop on Lifelong Learning and Personalization in Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction (LEAP-HRI), ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

    Ozgur Kara, Nikhil Churamani, and Hatice Gunes

    2021
    CLIFER: Continual Learning with Imagination for Facial Expression Recognition⁠, IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG)

    Nikhil Churamani, and Hatice Gunes

    2020
    Continual Learning for Affective Computing⁠, Doctoral Consortium, IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG)

    Nikhil Churamani

    Best Doctoral Consortium Paper Award

    2020
    Continual Learning for Affective Robotics: Why, What and How?⁠, IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

    Nikhil Churamani, Sinan Kalkan, and Hatice Gunes

    2020

    Pablo Barros, Nikhil Churamani, and Alessandra Sciutti

    2020
    The FaceChannel: A Light-weight Deep Neural Network for Facial Expression Recognition⁠, IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG)

    Pablo Barros, Nikhil Churamani, and Alessandra Sciutti

    2020
    The OMG-Empathy Dataset: Evaluating the Impact of Affective Behavior in Storytelling⁠, IEEE International Conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII)

    Pablo Barros, Nikhil Churamani, Angelica Lim, and Stefan Wermter

    2019
    The OMG-Emotion Behavior Dataset⁠, IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)

    Pablo Barros, Nikhil Churamani, Egor Lakomkin, Henrique Sequeira et al.

    2018
    Learning Empathy-Driven Emotion Expression using Affective Modulations⁠, IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)

    Nikhil Churamani, Pablo Barros, Erik Strahl, and Stefan Wermter

    2018
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    An Affective Robot Companion for Assisting the Elderly in a Cognitive Game Scenario⁠, Workshop on Intelligent Assistive Computing (WIAC), IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI)

    Nikhil Churamani, Alexander Sutherland, and Pablo Barros

    2018
    The Impact of Personalisation on Human-Robot Interaction in Learning Scenarios⁠, ACM International Conference on Human Agent Interaction (HAI)

    Nikhil Churamani, Paul Anton, Marc Brügger, Erik Fließwasser et. al.

    2017
    Hey Robot, Why Don't You Talk To Me?⁠, IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)

    H. G. Ng, P. Anton, M. Brügger, Nikhil Churamani, et. al.

    2017
    Teaching Emotion Expressions to a Human Companion Robot using Deep Neural Architectures⁠, IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)

    Nikhil Churamani, Matthias Kerzel, Erik Strahl, Pablo Barros, Stefan Wermter

    2017
    iCub: Learning Emotion Expressions using Human Reward⁠, Workshop on Bio-inspired Social Robot Learning in Home Scenarios, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
    2016
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