Hello!
I am currently a Research Associate at the Centre for Assuring Autonomy at the Institute for Safety Autonomy, University of York. I work in the modelling of probabilistic systems, requirements engineering, development of verification frameworks using formal methods, multi-objective optimisation, and self-adaptive systems.
Want to know more? My research is driven by the application of probabilistic model checking, a technique that allows the formal verification of systems exhibiting stochastic behaviour, modelling different sources of uncertainty, such as aleatory uncertainty from multiple existing AI components.
In recent work, I explore the integration of explainability into these systems. Ideally, such complex systems must operate with minimal human intervention while providing explanations on their decisions and outcomes to ensure transparency and trustworthiness.
Long-term Vision: My long-term research vision is to develop trustworthy autonomous systems that can operate safely and effectively in complex, dynamic environments, providing qualitative and quantitative guarantees of system requirements.
Research Interests
- Formal requirements modelling and elicitation, verification of systems.
- Model-driven engineering, system parameter optimisation, runtime verification and adaption.
- Safety implications of robotic systems, multi-robot systems (MRS) under different adaptive strategies.
I am also interested in collaborations with industry. Some of the industrial case studies I've worked with include: in the agricultural domain, the planning and management of vineyard tasks; collaborative robots in the construction domain; RTX Technology Research Center (RTRC) case study on the perception system used for autonomous taxiing, take-off and landing systems; Robot Assistive Dressing (RAD); and safety verification of situations involving maritime autonomous vessels.
Publications
Gricel Vázquez, Alexandros Evangelidis, Sepeedeh Shahbeigi, Simos Gerasimou.
Adaptive Human-Robot Collaborative Missions using Hybrid Task Planning.
International Conference on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems (SEAMS), 2025.
Radu Calinescu, Sinem Getir Yaman, Simos Gerasimou, Gricel Vázquez, Micah Bassett.
Verification and External Parameter Inference for Stochastic World Models.
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), 2025.
Alexandros Evangelidis, Gricel Vázquez, Simos Gerasimou.
Efficient Strategy Synthesis for MDPs via Hierarchical Block Decomposition.
CoRR abs/2506.17792 (2025)
Yasmin Rafiq, Gricel Vázquez, Radu Calinescu, Sanja Dogramadzi, Robert M. Hierons.
Symbolic Runtime Verification and Adaptive Decision-Making for Robot-Assisted Dressing.
Proceedings of the 51st Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA), 2025.
Nawshin Mannan Proma, Gricel Vázquez, Sepeedeh Shahbeigi, Arjun Badyal, Victoria J. Hodge.
Probabilistic Safety Verification for an Autonomous Ground Vehicle: A Situation Coverage Grid Approach.
IEEE International Conference on Vehicular Electronics and Safety (ICVES), 2025.
Gricel Vázquez, Anastasia Mavridou, Matthew Farrell, Tullio Pressburger, Radu Calinescu.
Robotics: A New Mission for FRET Requirements.
NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM), 2024.
Radu Calinescu, Calum Imrie, Ravi Mangal, Genaína Nunes Rodrigues, Corina S. Pasareanu, Misael Alpizar Santana, Gricel Vázquez.
Controller Synthesis for Autonomous Systems With Deep-Learning Perception Components.
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), 2024.
Carlo Menghi, Gricel Vázquez, Radu Calinescu, Alessandra Russo, J. Cámara.
Mission Specification Patterns for Mobile Robots: Providing Support for Quantitative Properties.
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), 2023.
Gricel Vázquez.
PhD Thesis: Scheduling of Missions with Constrained Tasks for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems.
University of York.
Gricel Vázquez Flores, Radu Calinescu, Javier Cámara.
Scheduling of Missions with Constrained Tasks for Heterogeneous Robot Systems.
In: Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems (FMAS), 2022.
Gricel Vázquez, Radu Calinescu, Javier Cámara.
Scheduling Multi-robot Missions with Joint Tasks and Heterogeneous Robot Teams.
In: Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS), 2021: 354-359.
Gricel Vázquez, Radu Calinescu, Javier Cámara.
Automated Scheduling of Multi-Robot System Missions: An Architectural Perspective (short paper).
In: European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA) Companion, 2021.