PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Preston Culbertson

Preston Culbertson is a roboticist who draws on machine learning, computer vision and control theory to develop robots that move like humans. He studied mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech and Stanford, finishing a PhD in 2022 while working with Mac Schwager in the Multi-Robot Systems Lab. In 2018, he and Schwager won the IEEE ICRA Best Paper Award in Robot Manipulation. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech and joined The AI Institute as a research scientist in June 2024; his DROP paper on in-hand cube reorientation won Outstanding Paper at the CoRL Workshop on Dexterous Manipulation in November 2024. Since 2025, he is an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell, where he leads the Praxis Lab on robust robot learning.

Timeline

  1. 2016–2022

    PhD at Stanford with Schwager

    He earns a BS in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech in 2016 and an MS in mechanical engineering from Stanford in 2020. At Stanford, he works with Prof. Mac Schwager in the Multi-Robot Systems Lab on multi-robot manipulation, distributed and robust adaptive control, and learning for decision-making and control. He completes his PhD in mechanical engineering in 2022.

  2. 2018

    ICRA award and NASA fellowship

    He and Mac Schwager win the 2018 IEEE ICRA Best Paper Award in Robot Manipulation for Decentralized Adaptive Control for Collaborative Manipulation, which shows that a team of robots can move an unknown payload along a desired trajectory by adapting their control gains. A 2018 NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship funds his work on algorithms for multi-robot assembly of orbital structures using teams of small satellites.

  3. 2021

    Navigating inside a NeRF

    In 2021, he coauthors Vision-Only Robot Navigation in a Neural Radiance World with Michal Adamkiewicz, Timothy Chen, Adam Caccavale, Rachel Gardner, Jeannette Bohg and Mac Schwager. The algorithm navigates a robot through a 3D environment represented as a neural radiance field, using only an on-board RGB camera for localization.

  4. 2023

    FRoGGeR grasp synthesis

    In 2023, he coauthors FRoGGeR: Fast Robust Grasp Generation via the Min-Weight Metric with Albert H. Li, Joel W. Burdick and Aaron D. Ames. The differentiable, analytic grasp metric enables collision-free grasp synthesis for dexterous hands in seconds.

  5. June 2024

    Research scientist at The AI Institute

    In June 2024, he joins The AI Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a research scientist. He works on contact-rich planning and 3D vision for dexterous mobile manipulation.

  6. 2024

    DROP for in-hand reorientation

    In 2024, he coauthors DROP: Dexterous Reorientation via Online Planning with Albert H. Li, Vince Kurtz and Aaron D. Ames. A sampling-based predictive controller and a vision-based pose estimator search for contact-rich control actions online and reach performance comparable to prior reinforcement-learning work on in-hand cube reorientation. DROP wins Outstanding Paper at the CoRL Workshop on Dexterous Manipulation in November 2024.

  7. Since 2025

    Assistant professor at Cornell

    He joins Cornell as an assistant professor of computer science in 2025, after working as a research scientist at The AI Institute and as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. He draws on machine learning, computer vision and control theory to develop robots that move like humans, and leads the Praxis Lab, whose research on robustness in robot learning focuses on dexterous manipulation and tool use. In January 2026, he gives a plenary talk at MIT, Robust Robot Behavior Through Online Optimization.

Career

  1. Since 2025Cornell UniversityAssistant professor of computer science
  2. From 2024The AI InstituteResearch scientist
  3. California Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral scholar

Education

  1. 2022Stanford UniversityPhD in mechanical engineering
  2. 2020Stanford UniversityMS in mechanical engineering
  3. 2016Georgia Institute of TechnologyBS in mechanical engineering

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Preston Culbertson. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Cornell University. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  3. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Cornell University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Cornell University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Preston Culbertson yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Preston Culbertson msl.stanford.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. News msl.stanford.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Preston Culbertson pculbertson.github.io. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Vision-Only Robot Navigation in a Neural Radiance World arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Preston Culbertson | Department of Computer Science | Cornell Bowers cs.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. DROP: Dexterous Reorientation via Online Planning arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Meet the new faculty: Preston Culbertson | Cornell Bowers bowers.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Plenary Talk | Prof. Preston Culbertson - Events Calendar calendar.mit.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. Preston Culbertson – Robotics @ Cornell robotics.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.