Priya Iyer's field is autonomy in an environment that punishes it. An underwater vehicle cannot be reached by radio, cannot use satellite positioning below the surface, and cannot be recovered quickly if something goes wrong. Every decision it makes, it makes alone, using sensors that drift and a map that may be out of date.
Her group works on the part of that problem that is about admitting uncertainty. A vehicle that knows it is lost and surfaces is a success; a vehicle that is confidently wrong is how you lose a hundred thousand dollars of equipment. Much of the group's published work is on navigation systems that carry an honest error estimate and act on it.
Iyer chairs the Department of Marine Engineering and made the case for the Marine Robotics and Test Basin over four years, on the argument that the department was teaching vehicle design to students who had never watched one fail somewhere recoverable. The basin opened in 2026.
She teaches MENG 340 Underwater Robotics and MENG 530 Autonomous Marine Systems, and supervises the student competition team. Her doctorate is in mechanical engineering; she came to marine work through a postdoctoral position on glider control and has not left.