He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Rice University in 2008. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics at Johns Hopkins University during 2008—2010. Plaku's research is in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, focusing on enhancing automation in human-machine cooperative tasks in complex domains, such as mobile robotics, autonomous underwater vehicles, and hybrid systems. His research is supported by NSF Intelligent Information Systems, NSF Software Infrastructure, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. More information, including publications, research projects, open-source software he has developed for robot motion planning, and educational materials can be found at http://www.robotmotionplanning.org