Teeratham {TJ} Vitchutripop

Robotics x Machine Learning Ph.D. Student
📍 Yale University

tj.vitchutripop@yale.edu
Google Scholar
@Vitchutripop
linkedin.com/in/tj-vitchutripop
github.com/tjvitchutripop

Hello 👋 I'm a third-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Yale University performing research in the Applied Planning, Learning, and Optimization (APOLLO) Lab, where I am advised by Daniel Rakita.

My research investigates how temporally-grounded experiential and interactive learning can be realized in embodied computational systems. I'm interested in designing machine learning agents that are, not only adept at processing the static content of experience, but also how it unravels across a continuous unstructured temporal axis. This effort involves representing moments and intervals of time and forging effective compositional, hierarchical abstractions over time. Thus, my work is closely aligned to the domains of continual learning and reinforcement learning with concrete applications to robotics. I am motivated by the end-goal of developing robotic systems that can meaningfully learn and adapt over longitudinal deployment in human-centric environments (e.g., home + assistive robotics) and operate efficiently in real-time critical scenarios (e.g., surgery, disaster response).

📢 News

August 2026

Selected as Yale Advanced Graduate Leadership Program (AGLP) Fellow

I'm thrilled to share that I have been selected as a Yale AGLP Fellow on the policy track! I'm excited for the opportunity to be up close learning about the intersection of academica and government through this program.

July 2026

Organized Workshop for Yale Pathways to Science

For the second year in a row, I hosted multiple workshop sessions on robotics + AI for Yale Pathways to Science, a summer program for local New Haven high school students interested in STEM.

Organized Workshop for Yale Pathways to Science — photo 2 of 3

Organized Workshop for Yale Pathways to Science — photo 3 of 3

March 2025

Selected as 2025 FASPE Design & Technology Fellow

I'm excited to share that I have been selected as a 2025 FASPE Design & Technology Fellow! FASPE is a fully-funded intensive program in professional ethics and ethical leadership held over two weeks in Germany and Poland, with a network of over 900 alumni worldwide across six professional disciplines. I look forward to learning a lot and exchanging ideas on ethical decision-making as a fellow!

📄 Publications

Preprint 2026

Stop Spatializing Time: Machine Learning Agents Should Learn Through Time, Not About Time

Teeratham Vitchutripop, Alyssa Quarles, Wenhe Zhang, Daniel Rakita

Paper

In Submission 2026

An Analysis of Streaming Deep Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Continual Learning in Robotics

Teeratham Vitchutripop, Alyssa Quarles, Wenhe Zhang, Richard Xue, Daniel Rakita

Paper Website Code

Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) 2026

Efficient On-policy Visual-RL via Stochastic Decoupled Policy Gradient

Haoxiang You, Yilang Liu, Davis Zong, Qian Wang, Teeratham Vitchutripop, Qi Wang, Daniel Rakita, Ian Abraham

Paper

Journal of Robotic Surgery 2026

Deep learning approach for critical exposure during division of the inferior mesenteric artery in colorectal surgery

Justin Bader, Xiatao Sun, Tripp Rosenfelt, Alexis Ramirez-Hardy, Teeratham Vitchutripop, Anand Srinivasan, Haddon Pantel, Amit Khanna, Daniel Rakita

Paper

Journal of Robotic Surgery 2026

AI-Powered Semantic Segmentation Model for Enhanced Ureteral Mapping and Real-Time Instrument Feedback in Robotic Colorectal Surgery

Justin Bader, Xiatao Sun, Tripp Rosenfelt, Alexis Ramirez-Hardy, Netanel Sapir, Rachel Scheub, Teeratham Vitchutripop, Amit Khanna, Haddon Pantel, Daniel Rakita