Umut Ozyurt
Computer Science Ph.D. Student at UT Austin
I am a Computer Science Ph.D. student at The University of Texas at Austin and a Graduate Research Assistant in the Robotics, Sensing and Networks Laboratory, advised by Prof. Volkan Isler.
I currently work on SAFE-BOLT, a U.S. Department of Energy Genesis Mission project on safe, force-aware bimanual robot execution for scientific laboratory operations.
My long-term goal is to develop dynamic object representations that encode geometry, material and physical properties, mass, affordances, and interaction history, then update as robots observe and interact with objects.
My background is primarily in deep learning and computer vision, including generative and diffusion models, human-centered robot perception, object detection and tracking, thermal vision, multimodal learning, and production computer vision systems. I am now extending this background toward robot perception and physical interaction.
The University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D. in Computer Science, 2026-Present
Middle East Technical University (METU)
B.Sc. in Computer Engineering, 2021-2026
GPA: 3.86 / 4.00 (Rank: 9/242)
Academic
Research Affiliations
Robotics,
Sensing and Networks Laboratory
University
of Cambridge
Middle
East Technical University(METU)
Selected Publications
Research contributions in computer vision and deep learning
Meta-LoRA: Meta-Learning LoRA Components for Domain-Aware ID Personalization
A novel approach using meta-learning for Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) components in diffusion models, enhancing identity preservation in text-to-image generation.
GRACE: Generating Socially Appropriate Robot Actions Leveraging LLMs and Human Explanations
A framework generating contextually appropriate robot behaviors by combining large language models with human social explanations for improved human-robot interaction.
Enhanced Thermal Human Detection with Fast Filtering for UAV Images
An approach optimizing thermal human detection on UAV platforms using efficient filtering techniques for real-time performance on edge devices.
Peer Review & Academic Service
Experience
Research and engineering experience
Research Experience
UT Austin, Robotics, Sensing and Networks Laboratory
Graduate Research Assistant
08/2026 - Present
Advisor: Prof.
Volkan Isler.
Working on
SAFE-BOLT, a U.S. Department of Energy Genesis
Mission project on safe, force-aware bimanual robot execution for
scientific laboratory operations.
INSAIT (Institute for Computer Science, AI and Technology)
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF)
Summer 2025
Worked with ETH Zurich faculty Prof. Luc Van Gool and Dr. Jan-Nico Zaech, together with Dr. Danda Paudel, on scalable 3D visual-question-answering tasks and GPU-accelerated collision labeling for evaluating spatial reasoning. Selected as one of 10 fellows from more than 4,000 applicants across over 150 countries for the 11-week, fully funded program.
faculty
METU ImageLab
Undergraduate Researcher
09/2024 - 06/2025
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. R. Gökberk Cinbiş.
Co-developed Meta-LoRA for
personalized diffusion models. The work reduced personalization training
from 625 to 375 steps, or 40% fewer, and resulted in the Meta-LoRA arXiv
preprint.
University of Cambridge (AFAR Lab)
Undergraduate Researcher
Summer 2024
Advisor: Prof. Hatice Güneş.
Worked on human-centered robot
perception and social appropriateness for robot actions. Designed the full
data and evaluation pipeline on human judgments, predicted uncertainty in
social appropriateness with a diverse set of models, and experimented with
heteroscedastic losses. As second author on GRACE, constructed the human
agreement classification component, helped define the task, specified
baselines, and contributed at each step of the ICRA 2025 manuscript.
METU Intelligent Systems Lab
Undergraduate Researcher
07/2023 - 07/2024
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Seyda Ertekin.
Designed and developed a
fast-filtering channel that improved an existing real-time thermal human
detector for UAV search and rescue. This work resulted in the first-author
IEEE IISEC 2023 paper and its oral presentation.
Professional Experience
Syntonym
Generative Computer Vision Researcher (Remote)
Sep 2024-Jun 2025; Nov 2025-Jul 2026
Built production pipelines for diffusion-based face swapping and developed controllable video facial anonymization methods that preserved head pose, expression, gaze, and temporal consistency.
Infodif
Computer Vision Engineer / Researcher
01/2024 - 07/2024
Developed and optimized a face recognition pipeline for the Turkish National Police. Designed multi-attribute recognition models that match suspects using only textual facial descriptions, with a mathematical scoring system robust to missing or ambiguous attributes.
AsisGuard
Candidate Computer Vision Engineer / Researcher
03/2023 - 12/2023
Led object detection and tracking projects for both thermal and RGB streams in edge surveillance products. Owned the full pipeline from dataset curation and model training to edge optimization on custom AI chips and NVIDIA Jetson Orin, while coordinating a team of interns.
Achievements
Recognitions of academic and research excellence
INSAIT SURF 2025
Selected for a prestigious 3-month Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at INSAIT, working with ETH Zürich-affiliated faculty.
4000+ applicants from 150+ countries
UIUC Rehg Lab Research Offer
Mentored by, and offered a summer research role to work with Ozgur Kara at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
ICVSS 2025 Acceptance
Accepted to the 19th International Computer Vision Summer School (34% acceptance rate among 521 primarily MSc and PhD applicants). Declined due to INSAIT commitment.
Best Presentation & Top Paper. Guided Research Symposium
Awarded for best presentation, and our paper was recognized as the overall best work (out of 27 papers) with a mean judge score of 13.8/15.
Top Project. Deep Generative Models
Recognized for the most complex and successful term project in the graduate "Deep Generative Models" course. Reimplemented a CVPR 2023 style transfer paper from scratch, resolving missing details and releasing the only public implementation .
Erasmus+ Traineeship Grant
Awarded funding support for a visiting research position at the University of Cambridge.
METU Merit Scholarship
Awarded a housing and dining scholarship for ranking in the top 1000, top 0.04%, among 2.5M+ applicants in the 2020 Turkish National University Entrance Exam.
High Honor Student
Recognized for outstanding academic excellence across 8 consecutive semesters.
Get In Touch
Research in computer vision, robotics, and physical intelligence
Location
Austin, Texas
Academic References
Hobbies & Interests
Creative pursuits and recreational activities beyond academia
Music
As a passionate self-taught pianist, I also play violin and viola. I compose original pieces across diverse genres, using music as a creative outlet for emotional expression.
Physical Activities
I stay active through swimming for endurance and meditation, and play amateur tennis to challenge my reflexes and strategy.
Others
I enjoy strategic challenges like chess, particularly in blitz and rapid formats. I am also a spectator and near-professional player of cue sports, focusing on three-cushion billiards and snooker.