The Team

Faculty & Students

Meet the researchers, engineers, and students driving autonomous robotics at MIST Lab.

Faculty

Principal Investigators

Giovanni Beltrame

Giovanni Beltrame

Full Professor

Leads research at the intersection of swarm intelligence, autonomous field robots, and space science — pushing robots into the most challenging environments on Earth and beyond.

Swarm IntelligenceField RoboticsSpace Systems
Jana Pavlasek

Jana Pavlasek

Assistant Professor

Investigates uncertainty in robotics — how to represent it in perception and handle it in planning — combining probabilistic inference with modern machine learning.

UncertaintyProbabilistic InferencePlanning
Pierre-Yves Lajoie

Pierre-Yves Lajoie

Assistant Professor

Develops spatial AI and robot perception systems that let machines understand and navigate complex 3D environments, with a focus on swarm intelligence and distributed mapping.

Spatial AICollaborative SLAMPerception
Researchers & Students

The Team

Research Associates
Yann Bouteiller

Yann Bouteiller

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
Machine learning, computer science, and microelectronics engineer working on deep and distributed learning for robotics.
Deep LearningReinforcement LearningSwarm Robotics
Postdoctoral Researchers
Hassan Fouad

Hassan Fouad

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
Works on energy-aware autonomy and control for long-term robotic missions, drawing on a background in aerospace engineering and control.
ControlEnergy-Aware AutonomyRobot Networks
Seyed Ehsan Marjani Bajestani

Seyed Ehsan Marjani Bajestani

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
Robotics systems engineer developing intelligent perception, multi-agent robotic systems, and custom PCB and embedded systems for autonomous platforms.
Robotic PerceptionEvent-Based VisionSwarm RoboticsCooperative LocalizationMulti-Agent Systems
Vivek Shankar Varadharajan

Vivek Shankar Varadharajan

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
Roboticist working on distributed robotics, swarm software ecosystems, and machine learning for long-term swarm autonomy.
Distributed RoboticsSwarm SoftwareMulti-Robot Exploration
PhD Students
Haechan Mark Bong

Haechan Mark Bong

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
Working on the application of foundation model in agricultural AI and robotics
Foundation ModelsAgricultural roboticsDigital agricultureUAV
Monica Li

Monica Li

Supervisor: Pierre-Yves Lajoie & Giovanni Beltrame
Researches 3D Gaussian mapping for multi-robot SLAM, in collaboration with the Oxford Robotics Institute.
Gaussian SplattingMulti-Robot SLAM
Simon Roy

Simon Roy

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
Ad astra per scientiam — working on world models, action compression for world models, and humanoid and space robotics.
World ModelsAction CompressionHumanoid RoboticsSpace Robotics
Maeva Guerrier

Maeva Guerrier

Supervisor: Jana Pavlasek & Giovanni Beltrame
Associated with Mila, she researches robot learning — visual navigation, foundation models, and reinforcement learning.
Robot LearningFoundation ModelsRLWorld Models
Riana Gagnon Souleiman

Riana Gagnon Souleiman

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame and Jana Pavlasek
PhD student at Polytechnique Montréal with research focused on multi-robot task allocation and traversability analysis
Task AllocationTraversability AnalysisRobotics
Karthik Soma

Karthik Soma

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
PhD student at Mila and Polytechnique Montréal working on collective intelligence, reinforcement learning, and robotics.
Collective IntelligenceReinforcement LearningRobotics
Phuc Nguyen

Phuc Nguyen

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
PhD student at Université de Montréal working on reinforcement learning, multi-agent swarm, robotics, and optimal control.
Multi-agentReinforcement LearningRobotics
Master's Students
Maëlle Mathieu

Maëlle Mathieu

Supervisor: Giovanni Beltrame
Master's student working on language-guided mission planning, markerless aerial localization, and semantic 3D world representations for autonomous manipulation.
Mission PlanningAerial RoboticsWorld ModelsManipulation
Julien Lagacé

Julien Lagacé

Supervisor: Pierre-Yves Lajoie
Master's student working on improving vehicle localization through the fusion of visual data, public map data and GPS.
Navigation & LocalizationAutonomous RoboticsRobotic Perception
Alumni

Lab Alumni

Name Role Now At
Hanqing Zhao Postdoctoral Researcher Université Laval (Assistant Professor)
Arnaud Brignol postdoctoral researcher Numalogics (AI Research Scientist)
Fang Wu Postdoctoral Fellow Venti Technologies (Senior Research Scientist)
Ivan Svogor Postdoctoral Researcher Siemens (Research And Development Engineer)
Christophe Marcel Trouillefou Postdoctoral Researcher —
David St-Onge Postdoctoral Researcher ÉTS Montréal (Professor)
Carlo Pinciroli Postdoctoral Researcher Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Professor)
Jacopo Panerati Postdoctoral Fellow National Research Council Canada (Research Officer)
Meng Li Postdoctoral Researcher Shenzhen Technology University (Professor, Dean)
Luca G. Gianoli Postdoctoral Researcher Desjardins (Senior Advisor)
Ricardo de Azambuja Postdoctoral Fellow Convergence Design Services (Sr. Robotics & Autonomous Drone Systems Designer)
Cao Yanjun PhD Student Huzhou Institute of Zhejiang University (Associated Researcher)
Wenqiang Du PhD Student Antek Logistics (Research Scientist)
Marcel Kaufmann PhD Student NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Data Scientist & Robotics Researcher)
Imane Hafnaoui PhD Student Manuka AI (Senior Consultant)
Olfat I. El-Mahi PhD Student Thales (Software Developer)
Majda Moussa PhD Student Université de Montréal (Artificial Intelligence Consultant)
Chao Chen PhD Student Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (Associate Researcher)
Guannan Li Exchange PhD Student Huzhou Institute of Zhejiang University (Vice President)
Dong Wang PhD Student Guizhou Provincial Laboratory of Intelligent Equipment
Alice Lemieux-Bourque Master Student —
Théo Gachet Master Student La Caisse (Quantitative Research Intern)
Milo Sobral Master Student Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute (Research Scientist)
Feng Yang Chen Master Student Canadian Space Agency (System Engineer)
David Vielfaure Master Student Jasper (Software developer)
Nicolas Valenchon Master Student Alstom (Software architect)
Benjamin Ramtoula Master Student University of Oxford (Post-doc Researcher)
Lucas Meyer Master Student The Forecasting Company (Machine Learning Engineer)
Sami Riahi MSc Student Collège Supérieur de Montréal (Course Instructor)
Maxime Barthelemy MSc Student Lyzi (CTO)
Amira Aouina Master Student OPAL-RT Technologies (Software Team Lead)
Hassan Anwar MSc Student Honeywell (Senior Advanced Systems Engineer)
Mohamed Amine Kennich Master Student Desjardins (Product Owner)
Erica Bugden Research Assistant —
Moritz Sperling Intern (Master's Thesis) Optonic GmbH (Computer Vision Engineer)
Roberta Piscitelli PBEEE Visiting Scholar Salesforce (Lead Solution Engineer)
Marco Marzi Intern E80 Group (Research And Development Engineer)
Nathalie Majcherczyk Graduate Intern Amazon Robotics (Applied Scientist)
Christophe Bédard Intern KUKA(Senior Software Engineer)
Emir Khaled Belhaddad Intern Desjardins (Developer)
Anthony Dentinger Intern Space Codesign (Software Developer)
Vedant Intern Samara Aerospace (Co-founder)
Nguyen-Nghia Do Research Intern HonYoungSemiconductor (Principal Engineer)
Naman Govil Intern NVIDIA (Principal GPU Architect)
Christian Guss MITACS Globalink Intern Continental AG (Software Engineer)
Jayant Harilela Research Intern Emp0 (Builder)
Prakash Hemani Intern o9 Solutions (Software Engineer)
Kwek Jing Yang Research Intern TikTok (Software Engineer)
Adam Lee-Brown Intern —
Yixiu Liu Research Intern Google (Software Engineer)
Chong Yeh Sai Research Intern Ever AI Technologies (Founding Partner)
Deboleena Roy MITACS Globalink Intern Meta (Staff Research Scientist)
Ismail Ben Ali Ouriaghli UPIR Intern Upgrade, Inc. (Senior Software Developer)
Mikael Capelle Intern Thales Alenia Space (Operations Research Analyst)
Bianca Angotti Intern Microquest Inc. (Senior Software Developer)
Oana Neagu Intern TD (Senior Solution Architect)
Florian Fougeanet Intern Capgemini (Senior Lead Software Engineer)
MIST Lab Team

A World-Class Team

Researchers, engineers, and explorers united by a passion for pushing autonomous systems beyond their limits.