Cosner named Glenn R. Stevens, E49, Assistant Professor

The Tufts School of Engineering is excited to announce that Ryan Cosner will join the faculty as the Glenn R. Stevens, E49, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, beginning January 2026.

Cosner earned his PhD and MS in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and his BS in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. His academic foundation is further grounded in his internship experiences with Ford Motor Company, Squishy Robotics, and most recently, the Autonomous Vehicle Research Group at NVIDIA, where he worked on real-world applications of autonomous systems.

Cosner’s research lies at the intersection of robotics, control theory, and machine learning, with a central goal of enabling safe and dynamic robot autonomy in unpredictable, real-world environments. His work is defined by its balance of theoretical rigor and practical application—developing risk-aware control frameworks and deployable algorithms, and testing them across a wide range of robotic platforms.

At Tufts, Cosner will continue his efforts to build trustworthy, high-performance autonomous systems that can be safely deployed at scale—an area of increasing relevance as robotics plays a growing role in industries including transportation, logistics, and healthcare.

Cosner’s appointment is supported by the Glenn R. Stevens, E49, Assistant Professorship, established in 2023 through the estate of Nathalie Stevens in appreciation of the education that her husband, Glenn R. Stevens, received at Tufts and the professional achievements it helped him accomplish. The professorship emphasizes the School’s commitment to investing in promising early-career faculty.

The Tufts community looks forward to welcoming Glenn R. Stevens, E49, Assistant Professor Ryan Cosner and to the innovations, collaborations, and mentorship he will bring to campus.