Josue Torres-Fonseca (he/him)
Hi! I am a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, Department of Computer Science and Engineering. I work with Dr. Joyce Chai as a member of the Situated Language and Embodied Dialogue (SLED) Lab. My research focuses on language understanding, cognitive development, and embodied agents, specifically, how robots can take advantage of their ability to interact with the world around them to learn language during spoken interaction with others. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, I graduated from Boise State University with a B.S. in Computer Science (Magna Cum Laude, Minor in Applied Mathematics), where during my last two years I performed research advised by Dr. Casey Kennington as a member of the Speech Language and Interactive Machines (SLIM) Lab.
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Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science and Engineering
Expected May 2028, University of Michigan
Advisor: Dr. Joyce Chai -
Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering
May 2025, University of Michigan
Advisor: Dr. Joyce Chai -
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Minor in Applied Mathematics
May 2023, Boise State University
Magna Cum Laude
Advisor: Dr. Casey Kennington
Research publications and preprints.
2026
2025
2022
Conference presentations and other talks.
2022
Courses I've assisted in teaching.
Tutor, Operating Systems
Jan 2023 – May 2023Boise State University
Taught students how concepts in class apply to their programming assignments; educated students on how concepts taught in class may be used in industry settings; assisted students in planning out and debugging their programming assignments.
Department of Computer Science
Tutor, Introduction to Theory of Computation
Jan 2021 – May 2021Boise State University
Assisted students by guiding them through their assignments; facilitated individual and group tutoring sessions.
Department of Computer Science
Tutor, Data Structures
Aug 2020 – Dec 2020Boise State University
Worked with students to enhance their understanding of topics discussed in class; guided students through debugging their code and understanding how their code worked; communicated and effectively explained the purpose of data structures and how they worked.
Department of Computer Science
Lab Assistant, Microprocessors
Aug 2020 – Dec 2020Boise State University
Guided students through lab work and debugging hardware and software issues; helped students understand concepts related to the labs and how the labs demonstrated these concepts; assisted professor in grading papers.
Department of Electrical and Computer EngineeringHistory of academic appointments.
Computer Science and Engineering Division, University of Michigan
August 2023 - PresentPhD Candidate, Situated Language and Embodied Dialogue Group
Supervised by Dr. Joyce Chai. Created a safety-centric dataset using PDDL to generate trajectories demonstrating how to complete household tasks while mitigating hazards rendered in the AI2-Thor simulator. Evaluated 11 state-of-the-art VLMs on hazard recognition via Visual Question Answering (VQA) and safe plan generation as an embodied agent performing household tasks while proactively mitigating hazards. Developed a decoupled multi-agent framework that separated hazard recognition from task execution, resulting in increased safety-planning success rates.
Ann Arbor, MI, USADepartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
May 2022 - November 2022Undergraduate Researcher, Language & Intelligence Group
Supervised by Dr. Jacob Andreas. Designed and built an interpretable ML model providing neuron annotations using no data. Presented poster at the MIT Summer Research Program poster session and delivered a lightning talk on the MIT Grad Diversity YouTube channel.
Cambridge, MA, USADepartment of Computer Science, Boise State University
August 2021 - August 2023Undergraduate Researcher, Speech Language and Interactive Machines Group
Supervised by Dr. Casey Kennington. Designed and built an incremental spoken dialogue system capable of transcribing and understanding speech, detecting and gaining a concrete understanding of objects, and mapping objects in its environment using SLAM and the Anki Cozmo robot. Gathered human appraisals and descriptions of robot emotional behaviors from participants and analyzed the data. Presented at SIGdial 2022 and LREC 2022.
Boise, ID, USADepartment of Computer Science, Texas State University
June 2020 - August 2020Undergraduate Researcher, Intelligent Security Group
Supervised by Dr. Mina Guirguis; funded by NSF as a Smart & Connected Communities REU site. Designed and built a game and reward system to secure a simulated water tank using game theory. Simulated and secured a water tank with check blocks acting as both an intrusion detection and prevention system.
San Marcos, TX, USAOther appointments I've held in industry.
Paylocity
May 2021 - August 2021Software Engineer Intern
Contributed to software development across the full lifecycle as part of a 13-member team. Worked with product owners and leads to translate use cases into features. Designed, developed, tested, and deployed new features in project releases. Applied Agile and Scrum methodologies; gained full-stack experience with JavaScript, React/Redux, C#, .NET, SQL, and Git.
Meridian, ID, USA- Gemini Academic Program Award ($10,000) — 2026 - 2027
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship ($159,000) — 2023 - 2028
- Dean's List — 2018 - 2023
- Boise State University Top Ten Scholar — 2023
- Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship ($7,500) — 2022
- Federal Employee Education & Assistance Fund Scholarship ($1,000) — 2018