Mansi Maheshwari

Reinforcement Learning & Lifelong Learning

Hello! I'm a Master's student in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Bruno Castro da Silva at the Autonomous Learning Lab. (Fun Fact: This lab was founded by Professor Emeritus Andrew Barto who was recently honored with the Turing Award for 'creating' RL!)

My research thus far has focused on Lifelong Reinforcement Learning, which I am now extending to embodied settings under the supervision of Professor Hao Zhang.

In the summer of 2025, I worked as an AI Research intern at CNH and an AI Instructor at University of Washington! At CNH, I worked on driverless tractors; I built a multitask learning model that made real-time perception more efficient. And I taught Fundamentals of AI to high school students at the University of Washington.

I'm passionate about making AI education accessible to everyone. Check out my Three Minute Thesis where I distilled my research into simple ideas for a non-technical audience! Currently, I'm helping iCEV design an upcoming AI textbook for high schoolers.

In 2022, I earned my B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington and then I spent two years as a Software Engineer at Nordstrom.

I will be graduating in May 2026 and am super excited about what's next! If you'd like to chat, or collaborate, feel free to reach out over email, or book a slot, or share anonymous feedback!

News

September, 2025Began Master's Thesis co-advised by Prof. Bruno Castro da Silva and Prof. Hao Zhang.

September, 2025Consulting with iCEV on an upcoming AI textbook for high school students.

August, 2025Presented AltNet at CoLLAs 2025 (Conference on Lifelong Learning Agents).

June, 2025AI Instructor at the University of Washington, co-designing and teaching the Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence course for high-school students.

May, 2025AI R&D Intern at CNH Industrial, developing multi-task perception models for driverless tractors.

April, 2025Selected finalist for Three Minute Thesis (3MT) at UMass, "From California to Alaska: Teaching AI to Adapt."

September, 2024Joined University of Massachusetts Amherst as an M.S. student in Computer Science.

Research

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Workshop paper, CoLLAs 2025 – AltNet: Alternating Networks for Plasticity Full paper in submission– AltNet: Addressing the Plasticity-Stability Dilemma in Reinforcement Learning

AI Research Intern, CNH, Summer 2025 – Multi-task learning for Vision in Driverless Tractors

Instructor, Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence – University of Washington
Summer 2025, Spring 2026
Designed and taught an introductory AI course for high-school students.

Artificial Intelligence Subject Matter Expert – iCEV
September, 2025 – present
Reviewed and developed curriculum content for the Introduction to Artificial Intelligence book, ensuring technical accuracy, completeness, and engaging activities for high-school learners.