Biography
Professor Nick Hawes completed a BSc (1999) and PhD (2004) in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Birmingham, before completing post-doctoral positions at MIT's Media Lab Europe in Dublin, and in the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. From 2009, he led a research group around AI applied to robotics at Birmingham, progressing to the title of Reader in Autonomous Intelligent Robotics.
Nick moved to Oxford in September 2017, joining the Oxford Robotics Institute as an Associate Professor and Pembroke College as a Tutorial Fellow.
He became Director of the Oxford Robotics Institute within the Department of Engineering Science, in 2022.
Awards and Achievements
Nick was selected to give the Lord Kelvin Award Lecture at the 2013 British Science Festival. This honour is given to an active researcher who has demonstrated outstanding communication skills to a general audience.
Research Interests
Nick’s research interests lie in the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to create intelligent, autonomous robots that can work with or for humans. He has worked on long-term autonomy for mobile robots; mixed initiative or shared autonomy between humans and robots; information-processing architectures for intelligent systems; the integration of AI planning techniques into a variety of robot systems; and the use of qualitative semantic and spatial representations to enable robots to reason about the possibilities for action in their worlds.
Research Groups
DPhil Opportunities
I am currently looking for DPhil students to join the GOALS lab at the Oxford Robotics Institute. DPhil topics will be in the area of long-term autonomy, the integration of learning and (probabilistic) planning, shared autonomy, or verification methods applied to robot behaviour.
Recent Publications
Receding Horizon Control for Signal Temporal Logic Using Robustness-Conserving Partial Formula Evaluation
Ilyes R, Brudermüller L, Hawes N & Lacerda B (2025), IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 10(10), 10775-10782
BibTeX
@article{recedinghorizon-2025/10,
title={Receding Horizon Control for Signal Temporal Logic Using Robustness-Conserving Partial Formula Evaluation},
author={Ilyes R, Brudermüller L, Hawes N & Lacerda B},
journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
volume={10},
pages={10775-10782},
publisher={Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)},
year = "2025"
}
The complexity dynamics of grokking
DeMoss B, Sapora S, Foerster J, Hawes N & Posner I (2025), Physica D Nonlinear Phenomena, 134859
BibTeX
@article{thecomplexitydy-2025/8,
title={The complexity dynamics of grokking},
author={DeMoss B, Sapora S, Foerster J, Hawes N & Posner I},
journal={Physica D Nonlinear Phenomena},
pages={134859},
publisher={Elsevier},
year = "2025"
}
SafeMove: multi-model navigation for fail-resistant autonomous nuclear material transport
Marquez-Gamez D, Harrison M, Pilon C, Marwood R, Stephens S et al. (2025), WM2025 Conference Proceedings
BibTeX
@inproceedings{safemovemultimo-2025/6,
title={SafeMove: multi-model navigation for fail-resistant autonomous nuclear material transport},
author={Marquez-Gamez D, Harrison M, Pilon C, Marwood R, Stephens S et al.},
booktitle={51st Annual Waste Management Symposia (WM2025)},
year = "2025"
}
DetMCVI: Life-sized deterministic POMDPs can be solved quickly with high success rates and small policy sizes
Schutz A, You Y, Mattamala ME, Caliskanelli I, Lacerda B et al. (2025)
BibTeX
@misc{detmcvilifesize-2025/5,
title={DetMCVI: Life-sized deterministic POMDPs can be solved quickly with high success rates and small policy sizes},
author={Schutz A, You Y, Mattamala ME, Caliskanelli I, Lacerda B et al.},
year = "2025"
}
Group decision-making in robot teleoperation: two heads are better than one
Nguyen A, Bhattacharyya R, Colombatto C, Fleming S, Posner H et al. (2025), 489-500
BibTeX
@inproceedings{groupdecisionma-2025/3,
title={Group decision-making in robot teleoperation: two heads are better than one},
author={Nguyen A, Bhattacharyya R, Colombatto C, Fleming S, Posner H et al.},
booktitle={IEEE/ACM International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2025)},
pages={489-500},
year = "2025"
}
Group Decision-Making in Robot Teleoperation: Two Heads are Better Than One
Nguyen D-A, Bhattacharyya R, Colombatto C, Fleming S, Posner I et al. (2025), 00, 489-500
BibTeX
@inproceedings{groupdecisionma-2025/3,
title={Group Decision-Making in Robot Teleoperation: Two Heads are Better Than One},
author={Nguyen D-A, Bhattacharyya R, Colombatto C, Fleming S, Posner I et al.},
booktitle={2025 20th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)},
pages={489-500},
year = "2025"
}
A transparency paradox? Investigating the impact of explanation specificity and autonomous vehicle imperfect detection capabilities on passengers
Omeiza D, Bhattacharyya R, Jirotka M, Hawes N & Kunze L (2025), Transportation Research Part F Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 109, 1275-1292
BibTeX
@article{atransparencypa-2025/2,
title={A transparency paradox? Investigating the impact of explanation specificity and autonomous vehicle imperfect detection capabilities on passengers},
author={Omeiza D, Bhattacharyya R, Jirotka M, Hawes N & Kunze L},
journal={Transportation Research Part F Traffic Psychology and Behaviour},
volume={109},
pages={1275-1292},
publisher={Elsevier},
year = "2025"
}
No regrets: investigating and improving regret approximations for curriculum discovery
Rutherford A, Beukman M, Willi T, Lacerda B, Hawes N et al. (2025), Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 37 (NeurIPS 2024), 37, 16071-16101
BibTeX
@inproceedings{noregretsinvest-2025/2,
title={No regrets: investigating and improving regret approximations for curriculum discovery},
author={Rutherford A, Beukman M, Willi T, Lacerda B, Hawes N et al.},
booktitle={38th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024)},
pages={16071-16101},
year = "2025"
}
Time-bounded planning with uncertain task duration distributions
Staniaszek M, Brudermüller L, You Y, Bhattacharyya R, Lacerda B et al. (2025), Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 186
BibTeX
@article{timeboundedplan-2025/1,
title={Time-bounded planning with uncertain task duration distributions},
author={Staniaszek M, Brudermüller L, You Y, Bhattacharyya R, Lacerda B et al.},
journal={Robotics and Autonomous Systems},
volume={186},
number={104926},
publisher={Elsevier},
year = "2025"
}
Human-Robot Interaction in Extreme and Challenging Environments
Tian L, Carreno-Medrano P, Giuliani M, Hawes N, Bhattacharyya R et al. (2025), ACM IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction, 1988-1990
BibTeX
@inproceedings{humanrobotinter-2025/1,
title={Human-Robot Interaction in Extreme and Challenging Environments},
author={Tian L, Carreno-Medrano P, Giuliani M, Hawes N, Bhattacharyya R et al.},
pages={1988-1990},
year = "2025"
}
