Sachit Butail, Ph.D.

Education

• Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland (2012)
• M. Eng. in Systems Engineering, Cornell University (2005)
• B.E. in Mechanical Engineering, Delhi University, New Delhi, India (2000)

Research Interests

• Human-robot interaction
• Dynamical systems
• Robotics
• Complex systems
• Collective behavior

Selected Projects

• Collaborative Research: The Role of Stress in Human Crowd Dynamics During Emergency Situations, funded by the National Science Foundation
• Human-assisted robotic sampling of aquatic microorganisms, funded by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
• Cues and actions for efficient nonverbal human-robot communication, funded by National Science Foundation
• Agent-based Modeling Toward Effective Testing and Contact-tracing During the COVID-19 Pandemic, funded by National Science Foundation

Selected Publications

• A. Bhattacharya, S. Butail. Robot Movement Based Inference of Teleoperator State for Multi-robot Search. Complex & Intelligent Systems, 11 (443), 2025
• R. Krzysiak and S. Butail. Human prior knowledge estimation from movement cues for information-based control of mobile robots during search. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 14(2), 2024
• S. Butail, A. Bhattacharya, and M. Porfiri. Estimating hidden relationships in dynamical systems: discovering drivers of infection rates of COVID-19. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 34, 2024
• R. Krzysiak and S. Butail. Information based control of robots in search and rescue missions with human prior knowledge. IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, 52(1), 2022
• Truszkowska, M. Thakore, L. Zino, S. Butail, E. Caroppo, Z.-P. Jiang, A. Rizzo, and M. Porfiri. Designing the safe reopening of US towns through high-resolution agent-based modeling. Advanced Theory and Simulations, 4(9), 202100157, 2021
• H. R. L. Lee, A. Bhatia, J. Brynjarsdóttir, N. Abaid, A. Barbaro, and S. Butail. Speed modulated social influence in evacuating pedestrian crowds. Collective Dynamics, 5, 2020
• Sathish, M. Orkisz, M. Norrlof, and S. Butail. Data-driven gearbox failure detection in industrial robots. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 16(1), 193-201, 2020.
• Butail and M. Porfiri. Detecting switching leadership in collective motion. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, 29, 011102, 2019
• Roy, K. Howes, R. Muller, S. Butail and N. Abaid. Extracting interactions between flying bat pairs using model-free methods. Entropy, 21(1), 2019
• M. Jorjafki, B. J. Sagarin, and S. Butail. Drawing power of virtual crowds. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 15 (145), 2018

Work Experience

• Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Northern Illinois University, 2016 to present
• Assistant Professor, IIIT-Delhi, 2014 to 2016
• Postdoctoral Fellow, New York University, 2012 to 2014