Ethan Foong

Hello!

I am a third-year undergraduate at Northwestern University. I'm currently pursuing a BS in Computer Engineering and an MS in Computer Science through Northwestern's combined BS/MS program.

My current research in collaboration with Prof. Daniel Seita and Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme focuses on learning of sequential, dexterous manipulation tasks where a robot must simultaneously execute multiple skills (grasp one object + push another) at once using a resource-aware grasp selection framework and curriculum learning.

More broadly, I'm interested in how robots can acquire diverse manipulation skills with minimal human supervision or reward engineering. For example, a couple of questions that intrigue me are: how can robots learn from "play" data within an environment? Can robots learn how to be curious and more efficiently investigate environments to learn new skills autonomously?

🎓 Seeking PhD positions for Fall 2027

Email  /  CV  /  Google Scholar  /  LinkedIn

Research

(* indicates equal contribution, † indicates equal advising)

HANDFUL tackles sequential grasp-conditioned dexterous manipulation tasks by treating finger use and in-hand space as a limited resource: learning resource-aware one and two-finger grasps and then leveraging the leftover fingers and in-hand space from grasping for downstream objectives like pressing a button, pulling a drawer, twisting a knob and pushing/picking up a second object.

Service

Workshop reviewer: ICRA-2026
SAT, ACT, and AP Tutor with Applerouth: Fa25-Ongoing
RSS Volunteer: 2025
Peer Mentor at Northwestern: CS 213: Introduction to Computer Systems, Wi25, Sp25.

Awards

----Undergrad----
SURE Research Fellowship University of Southern California, 2025
SURG Grant Northwestern University, 2024

Inspired by the template here.