A UNIFYING THEME, ROBUSTNESS AND UNCERTAINTY MANAGEMENT: Recent technological advances hold the promise of significantly changing the way we live and interact with our environment. Smart environments will enable elderly people to carry on independent lives and can enhance both safety and self--discovery at kindergartens and schools. Computers that interpret facial expressions and human gestures can lead to simpler interfaces. Autonomous systems can free humans from repetitive or dangerous tasks. Finally, intelligent activity surveillance systems can substantially improve our ability to prevent tragedies. Indeed, computer vision and control are already linked through many successful proof--of--concept systems developed at several research institutions, including Northeastern University. However, while highly optimized for the tasks that they have been designed for, these systems remain fragile to uncertainty. The goal of the ROBUST SYSTEMS LABORATORY is to develop both theoretical tools and specific algorithms leading to robust systems, capable of achieving near optimal performance under a wide range of conditions.