For Students

Prospective Graduate Students

We are currently seeking Master’s and PhD students with a passion for interdisciplinary research at the cross-section of autonomous systems, ethics, and human-robot interaction (HRI). If interested, you are encouraged to apply to the Penn State graduate admissions office. All applications for admission must be submitted through the graduate office. Please take a look at our projects page in order to gain an understanding of the current and upcoming research.

If you are already a student at Penn State, joining the lab is a process. The process begins by reading the lab manifesto. Typically, students are expected to spend a semester working on an independent study project under my (Dr. Wagner’s) supervision prior to joining the lab — this gives both me and the student an opportunity to learn if and how well we work together. If the independent study goes well, the student is generally invited to join the lab, assuming group size and funding permits.

Prospective Undergraduate Students

We are always on the lookout for highly motivated undergraduate students who would like to gain research experience and make a difference. An engineering degree is not a pre-requisite for becoming a part of our lab. We strive to include people from a diverse set of majors and research perspectives. Successful students are very hardworking, passionate about the problem they are exploring, willing to learn new things, and capable of pushing past, through, and over the many challenges a researcher will face. As part of the lab, students will be expected to contribute to the generation of research ideas, review existing literature, learn and program robots, run experiments, collect and analyze data. Exceptional students may have the opportunity to develop and present papers at conferences.

Undergraduate research assistance may also receive course credit for their effort (AERO 496, or possible equivalence in home department). Work in the REAL lab will be a valuable experience both for students interested in pursuing graduate studies, or for students interested in entrepreneurship or employment in the quickly growing robotics industry. If you are interested in joining the lab, please contact alan.r.wagner@psu.edu via email. Please include your name, current major(s), unofficial transcripts, and a brief 200-word statement on what you would like to gain by joining the lab.