Distinguished Lecture: Safe, Trustworthy Autonomous Mobility: A Human-Centered Symbiotic Systems Perspective
Autonomous mobility is largely approached as a vehicle-centric problem. Persistent challenges in safety,
scalability, and public trust suggest a deeper issue: “intelligence” is often considered in isolation rather than as
distributed. This presentation argues that truly safe and trustworthy autonomy will emerge only through
symbiotic computational systems, where perception, decision-making, and control are distributed across
humans, machines, and infrastructure.
The presentation starts with an overview of the four decades-long progress in autonomous driving and related
advancements in driver assistance technologies. It is followed by a discussion of the central thesis: that many
failures in autonomous mobility stem not from algorithms alone, but from how system boundaries are defined—
what is sensed, where intelligence resides, and how responsibility is shared. Framing autonomy as a systems-
level problem, the talk draws on principles of distributed and embodied cognition to unify perspectives from
robotics, artificial intelligence, human–computer interaction, and transportation engineering.
Concrete examples from multidisciplinary research by the CVRR and LISA teams at UC San Diego, conducted
on real vehicles in real-world driving environments and validated through both quantitative benchmarks and
qualitative studies in collaboration with industry partners, illustrate how shared autonomy can tightly couple
human state (e.g., intent, attention, readiness) with environmental context to enable safer and more adaptive
human–AI interaction. The lecture also discusses how advances in foundation models, self-supervised learning,
and active learning can improve generalization and robustness in safety-critical settings.
The talk concludes with key open challenges, including multimodal foundation models for traffic ecosystems,
human–AI co-adaptation, and continual learning under domain shift, important problems to realize scalable,
trustworthy autonomous mobility.
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- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library (SJSU)
- 150 E San Fernando St San Jose, California 95112
- San Jose, California
- United States
- Room Number: MLK Room 225
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- Co-sponsored by Vishnu S. Pendyala, San Jose State University
- Starts 24 April 2026 07:00 AM UTC
- Ends 30 April 2026 12:00 AM UTC
- No Admission Charge
Speakers
Professor Mohan Trivedi
Safe, Trustworthy Human-Centered Autonomous Mobility: A Human-Centered Symbiotic Systems Perspective
Biography:
Mohan Trivedi (Life Fellow, IEEE) is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Engineering at
the University of California, San Diego, and the founding director of the Computer Vision
and Robotics Research Laboratory (CVRR) and the Laboratory for Intelligent and Safe
Automobiles (LISA). During his long academic career, his primary focus has been the
engineering of human-centered intelligent systems to enhance safety, security, reliability, and
interactions among intelligent agents in challenging real-world environments. Trivedi has
mentored and collaborated with hundreds of creative, diligent, and passionate student
researchers and dozens of industrial partners. These efforts have resulted in innovative and
impactful contributions in computer vision, multimodal sensing & fusion, advanced driver
assistance, autonomous driving, and human–machine interaction. Bibliometric analysis recognize CVRR and
LISA teams among the most prolific, highly cited, and influential research groups globally.
Dr. Vishnu S Pendyala of San Jose State University
Moderator
Biography:
Vishnu S. Pendyala, Ph.D., is a faculty member in Applied Data Science and a University Senator with San Jose State University, current chair of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, Coordinator for Regions 5&6, and a Distinguished Contributor of the IEEE Computer Society. Under his leadership for 4 years as the Chair, the IEEE Computer Society SCV Chapter received the Global Outstanding Chapter for 2024. He also taught at Kyungpook National University (ranked #698 in Best Global Universities), South Korea, as a visiting scholar. As a past ACM Distinguished Speaker, researcher, and industry expert, he gave more than 100 talks and tutorial sessions in various forums such as faculty development programs, the 12th IEEE GHTC, IEEE ANTS, 12th IACC, 10th ICMC, IUCEE, 12th ACM IKDD CODS and 30th COMAD, ACM COMPUTE to audiences at venues such as Stanford University, Google, University of Wisconsin (Madison), University of Greater Manchester, University of Hawaii, Computer History Museum, Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología, Lima, Peru, IIT Ropar, IIIT Hyderabad, KREA, IIT Jodhpur, University of Hyderabad, IIT Indore, IIIT Bhubaneswar. Some of these talks are available on YouTube and IEEE.tv.
Dr. Pendyala is a senior member of the IEEE and ACM. He has over two decades of experience in the software industry in Silicon Valley, USA and more than 50 publications to his credit. His book, “Veracity of Big Data,” is available in several libraries, including those of MIT, Stanford, CMU, the US Congress and internationally. A few other books on AI/ML and software development that he edited are also well-received and have been included in the US Library of Congress and other reputed libraries. Dr. Pendyala taught a one-week course sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India, under the GIAN program in 2017 to Computer Science faculty from all over the country and delivered the keynote in a similar program sponsored by AICTE, Government of India, in 2022. Dr. Pendyala served on the US government's National Science Foundation (NSF) proposal review panel in 2023 and the Canadian government’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) in 2025 / 2026. He received the Ramanujan Memorial Gold Medal and a shield for his college at the State Math Olympiad. He also played an active role in the Computer Society of India and was the Program Secretary for its annual national convention. He has traveled widely, covering 23 countries and most states in the US and India.
Address:One Washington Sq, San Jose State University, San Jose, United States, 95192-0250
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