Chia-Man Hung | Oxford

About Me

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), working on robotics and machine learning with Ioannis Havoutis and Ingmar Posner. My current research interests span the theory and application of visuomotor control, latent space planning and robot manipulation. I am also a member of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines & Systems and a Clarendon Scholar.

Originally from Taiwan, I made my first courageous step at the age of seventeen to study maths and physics in France, against my parents’ will. It is my deep belief that mathematics is the secret to understanding the world. I dream of becoming a mathematician, a scientist, a pilot, and an astronaut. When I am not messing around with robots, I am practising judo, flying gliders, making video games, or promoting gender equality in science and technology.

Publications

C.-M. Hung.
From Visuomotor Control to Latent Space Planning for Robot Manipulation
PhD thesis, University of Oxford.
J. Yamada*, C.-M. Hung*, J. Collins, I. Havoutis, I. Posner.
Leveraging Scene Embeddings for Gradient-Based Motion Planning in Latent Space
[paper][video]
Under review at: ICRA (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation) 2023.
*Equal contribution.
C.-M. Hung, S. Zhong, W. Goodwin, O. P. Jones, M. Engelcke, I. Havoutis, I. Posner.
Reaching Through Latent Space: From Joint Statistics to Path Planning in Manipulation
[paper][video] [ICRA presentation][ICRA slides] [ICRA poster]
IEEE RA-L (Robotics and Automation Letters) 2022.
C.-M. Hung, L. Sun, Y. Wu, I. Havoutis, I. Posner.
Introspective Visuomotor Control: Exploiting Uncertainty for Failure Recovery
[arXiv][video] [ICRA paper] [ICRA presentation] [poster]
ICRA (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation) 2021.
O. Groth, C.-M. Hung, A. Vedaldi, I. Posner.
Goal-Conditioned End-to-End Visuomotor Control for Versatile Skill Primitives
[arXiv][video] [ICRA paper] [ICRA presentation] [github]
ICRA (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation) 2021.
M. Samvelyan, T. Rashid, C. Schroeder de Witt, G. Farquhar, N. Nardelli, T. G. J. Rudner, C.-M. Hung, P. H. S. Torr, J. Foerster, S. Whiteson.
The StarCraft Multi-Agent Challenge
[arXiv] [extended abstract] [video][github]
AAMAS (International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems) 2019.
NeurIPS (Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems) Deep RL workshop 2019.
G. J. Chang, S.-H. Chen, C.-Y. Hsu, C.-M. Hung, H.-L. Lai.
Strong Edge-Coloring for Jellyfish Graphs
Discrete Mathematics, 338 (2015) 2348-2355.
*Authors listed in alphabetical order.

Past Projects

C.-M. Hung, S. Salter, I. Posner, I. Havoutis.
Robot Learning for Autonomous Assembly
[report][poster][src-algo][src-env]
Sep. 2018.
C.-M. Hung, W. Jiang, Z. Liu, X. Zhu.
Multi-class Image Classification - Learning Output Kernels with Block Coordinate Descent
[report][src]
Apr. 2017.
S. El Alaoui Talibi, C.-M. Hung, Z. Liu, M. Ynocente Castro.
Linagora Data Challenge - Email Recipient Recommendation
[report][src]
Mar. 2017.
C.-M. Hung, Z. Liu, M. Ynocente Castro.
Data Challenge in Kernel Methods - Multi-class Image Classification
[report][src]
Mar. 2017.
D. Chen, C.-M. Hung.
State Space Model for the Prediction of Energy Consumption
[report][slides][src]
Mar. 2017.
C.-M. Hung, Z. Liu.
Review of Statistical and Computational Trade-offs in Estimation of Sparse Principal Components
[report][src]
Jan. 2017.
D. Chen, C.-M. Hung, B. Song.
Variational Methods for Inference
[report][poster][src]
Jan. 2017.
C.-M. Hung, D. Chen.
Immediate Versus Delayed Rewards for the Game of Go
[report][slides][src]
Jan. 2017.
R. He, C.-M. Hung.
Pathfinding in 3D Space - A*, Theta*, Lazy Theta* in Octree Structure
[report][poster][slides][slides(fr)][demo][src]
Mar. 2016.
C.-M. Hung.
Real-time Approximated Global Illumination - From SSAO to SSDO
[report][slides(fr)][demo][src]
Feb. 2016.
R. He, C.-M. Hung.
Skybox Creation by Photo Fusion
[report(fr)][demo-web][demo][src][report-ceres][poster-ceres][slides-ceres][demo-ceres][src-ceres]
Feb. 2016.
R. He, C.-M. Hung.
Shortest Paths on Surfaces - Geodesics in Heat
[report][slides(fr)][demo-windows][demo-linux][demo-mac][src]
Nov. 2015.
Q.-A. Chen, C.-M. Hung.
Multiplayer LAN Card Game - Love Letter
[report(fr)][slides(fr)][app][src]
Jun. 2015.
R. He, C.-M. Hung.
Face Detection with Boosting
[project-description(fr)][report(fr)][slides(fr)]
May. 2015.
A. Clariond, C.-M. Hung, R. Li, Y. Li, E. Six, M. Szafraniec, B. Taillé.
French National Robotic Competition
[report(fr)][slides][slides(fr)]
May. 2015.

Experience

Education

2017-2022:	Ph.D. in Robotics and Machine Learning, in the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent
	Machines & Systems, in the department of Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
2016-2017:	MSc degree in Data Science, in the department of Applied Mathematics of École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France.
	*Diplôme d'ingénieur* (French engineering degree, equivalent to an MSc degree), Télécom ParisTech, Paris.
2013-2016:	*Diplôme d'ingénieur*, École Polytechnique.
2011-2013:	Preparatory program leading to the Grandes Écoles entrance exams, Lycée Louis le Grand, Paris.
Until 2011:	Secondary education in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Work Experience

Apr. 2017 - Sep. 2017:	Software Engineering Intern, Google Assistant, Google Inc., Zurich, Switzerland.
Mar. 2016 - Sep. 2016:	Software Engineering Intern, Google Inc., London, United Kingdom.
Jun. 2015 - Aug. 2015:	Summer Engineering Intern, Zodiac Aérospace, Rouen, France.
Jul. 2012 - Aug. 2012:	Academia Sinica Summer Research Program, Department of Mathematics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.

CV

Personal Activities

I co-founded the mathematics society "X-Poincaré" at École Polytechnique. We organised a series of fun competitions, consisting of solving maths riddles while jogging. Our goal is to share our excitement in maths with others! At Oxford, I served as a mentoring co-ordinator in OxFEST (Oxford Females in Engineering, Science and Technology), which means I helped run the mentoring scheme. We provided our members the support of a more experienced individual. I was also the researcher representative of OxWoCS (Oxford Women in Computer Science), where my role was to organise socials for female researchers so we get to know each other better.

My newfound obsession is judo. Starting out as a complete beginner in 2018, I served as the women's captain of Oxford Judo in 2020-21. Always give my 100% to training. More than happy to share a mat with fellow judokas out there! Equally passionate about gliding, I am a licensed glider pilot (my pilot story) and I served as the captain and the IT officer of Oxford University Gliding Club. We fly at Weston on the Green. Watch my presentation about gliding in Russian here. I am also a CMAS 2-star scuba-diver (equivalent to PADI rescue diver), certified after one and a half years of rigorous theoretical and practical training, allowing me to dive up to 20 metres without the supervision of an instructor.