Karl Velazquez

Head of AI, Sensing & Software · Möbius Industries

Karl Velazquez

Born and raised in Los Angeles to Mexican parents, I moved across the country to study at MIT, where I found robotics research and kept at it. These days I live in New York City, where I lead AI, sensing, and software at Möbius Industries, a de-manufacturing startup founded by one of my closest friends. Outside of work, I'm usually behind a DJ controller, working through someone's entire discography, or planning the next trip.

  • Robotics & HRI research
  • MIT '25
  • Amateur DJ
  • NYC via Boston via LA
Karl Velazquez, studio headshot in a Möbius Industries jacket
Career & Publications

Ten roles, two papers, and one origin story worth telling

A string of backend, robotics, and research roles over the course of a decade, leading, more or less by accident, to a friend's robotics startup.

Head of AI, Sensing & Software · Möbius Industries
June 2025 – Present · New York, NY

Leading the AI, sensing, and software stack behind an automated "de-manufacturing" platform that disassembles and sorts end-of-life electronics and appliances to recover high-purity raw materials, including steel, aluminum, copper, cobalt, and lithium, as an alternative to overseas mining.

How this happened: Möbius's founder and CEO, Matthew Pierre Louis, is a close friend and a fraternity brother from Theta Tau at MIT, a year below Karl. Karl had planned to stay at MIT for a Master of Engineering, but lost his funding path when federal cuts hit academic research funding. Around the same time, he and Matthew were already planning to split an apartment in Cambridge. When Matthew asked what Karl's rent budget was, Karl had to admit he had no funding lined up and could not actually cover it.

Matthew, who was building Möbius and needed a software engineer, offered Karl a three-month internship so he could get his financial footing back. Karl ended up enjoying the work enough that the three-month internship never really ended. He joined full-time the Monday after his Friday MIT graduation and is now Head of AI, Sensing, and Software there. As Karl puts it, "the rest is history."

Robotics Researcher · MIT d'Arbeloff Laboratory
September 2024 – June 2025

Built a PyTorch framework translating human force profiles to language and back, ran 10-volunteer human trials, controlled UR 6-axis arms with admittance/virtual-dynamics control, and ran an observational study with a Spaulding Rehabilitation physical therapist. This work became the RSS 2025 and Nature papers below.

Software Engineer Intern · Capital One
June – August 2024 · McLean, VA

Added Zelle event-data publishing into Capital One’s internal data lakes using Java and Spring Boot, with Snowflake and Splunk for downstream querying and monitoring.

Software Engineer Intern · Apple
May – August 2023 · Cupertino, CA

Worked on OS-level daemon services in Swift for HomePod and iPhone, plus SwiftUI updates to the Home app. NDA’d, so details beyond this are confidential.

DeFi Research & Backend Dev Extern · Opdefi
January 2023 · Remote

Researched DeFi protocols (Uniswap, Curve, Convex) and wired up smart-contract interactions with ABIs, typechain, and ethers.js, tested against Foundry mainnet forks.

Backend Engineer (Contract) · Oculo Health
May – September 2022 · Remote

Built the backend for an AI-powered mental fitness tracker from scratch: an Express.js/Node.js API and a hand-rolled auth system (Passport.js, bcrypt, sessions), deployed on EC2 behind nginx.

Undergraduate Researcher · MIT Mobile Technology Lab
June – August 2022 · Remote

Backend work on a health diagnostics platform, and began overhauling a legacy audio-sharing site used in mental-health treatment.

Undergraduate Researcher · MIT Signal Kinetics
June – August 2022 · Remote

Serverless backend (AWS AppSync GraphQL, DynamoDB, Lambda) for an IoT indoor-mapping system, within Fadel Adib's wireless-sensing research group.

Undergraduate Researcher · MIT App Inventor
January 2022 · Cambridge, MA / Remote

Built a new serverless backend, reviewed IoT curriculum submissions from international partner institutions, and built micro:bit-based demos and curriculum projects.

Life inside the workshop

Möbius is building toward a planned New York relocation, but the early machines, like the "Multi-Line Juliet V2," one of the de-manufacturing line's core sorting units, were built and tested out of the Boston/Cambridge workshop.

Karl standing arms-crossed in front of the Multi-Line Juliet V2 machine at the Mobius Industries workshop
Karl gesturing toward a control panel while demoing hardware to a colleague in the workshop

Publications

Two papers, both on the same throughline: teaching robots to combine physical force and spoken language the way a good physical therapist does.

Karl presenting on stage at RSS 2025, title slide reading Cross-modality Force and Language Embeddings for Natural Human-Robot Communication
RSS 2025 · Robotics: Science and Systems

Cross-Modality Embedding of Force and Language for Natural Human-Robot Communication

When two people carry something heavy together, they coordinate with both touch and talk: "lift on three," "a little more your side." This project teaches a robot to do the same. It learns a shared mathematical space where a physical push and a sentence describing that push land in roughly the same place, so the robot can translate between "push harder" and an actual force, and back again. Built on a UR robot arm, trained and validated with 10 human volunteers, and informed by watching real physical therapy sessions at Spaulding Rehabilitation.

Presented in person at USC, June 2025. RSS is one of robotics' most selective venues, with roughly a quarter of submissions accepted. Karl was a main contributor, alongside Ravi Tejwani, John Payne, Paolo Bonato, and Harry Asada, spanning MIT, Harvard Medical School, and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network.

arXiv preprint Project site Code RSS program
Wide stage view of the RSS 2025 presentation with two seated panelists
Communications Engineering (Nature portfolio) · 2026

Adaptive Robot Guidance Through Real-Time Compliance Estimation and Dual-Modal Control

The direct follow-up to the RSS paper, and the more clinically-minded of the two. Picture a good dance instructor: when you're struggling, they physically position your arms and give firm verbal correction; once you've got it, they back off to a light touch and encouragement. This paper builds a controller that does exactly that for a robot arm. It estimates, in real time, how "physically compliant" and "verbally compliant" a person is being, and dynamically shifts the mix of force and speech accordingly. The approach is proven mathematically safe, meaning it cannot inject net energy into the person it is guiding.

Validated with a Spaulding Rehabilitation observational study and a 12-person MIT user study: up to 50% less tracking error, 39% smoother movement, and 27% faster task completion versus fixed-combination guidance. Karl co-implemented the controller, designed and ran the experiments, and co-wrote the paper, alongside Ravi Tejwani, John Payne, Paolo Bonato, and Harry Asada.

Read the paper Code Dataset
Wide auditorium shot of the RSS 2025 opening session at USC, Los Angeles
RSS 2025 opening session, USC, Los Angeles, June 2025
Teaching & Speaking

Passing it on

Robotics stuck with Karl partly because people took the time to teach it to him well, so he has tried to return the favor.

Karl with a large group of Korean high school students at Hansung Science High School, all making a finger-heart gesture
Karl with fists raised on a mountain summit near Seoul, radar dome visible in the background

A week of robotics in Korea

In July 2025, Karl taught a week-long robotics program to high schoolers at Hansung Science High School (한성과학고등학교) in Korea, guiding students through Arduino-based projects from first principles. He stayed on afterward for some hiking around Seoul. A nearby summit with a radar dome, likely Bukhansan, capped off the trip.

Telling the Möbius story at MIT Sloan

At the end of September 2026, Karl went back to campus to speak with the MIT Sloan Robotics Club about Möbius Industries, covering the business, the technology, and what it is actually like to go from a three-month favor for a friend to running AI, sensing, and software for a funded robotics startup.

Life & Hobbies

The other half of the story

Robots pay the bills, but this is the rest of it: DJ sets, discography deep-dives, trips, and whatever's cooking.

DJing

Karl got into DJing because his fraternity brothers at MIT (Theta Tau) were already into it. He picked it up socially, and it has grown into a real hobby since. He describes himself as an "amateur," but what he values about it is how portable and spontaneous it is: he mixes casually in his apartment, shows up to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to DJ just because, or sets up at a friend's event on an hour's notice. Most of what he plays, he finds digging through SoundCloud.

  • Software djay Pro (Algoriddim)
  • Controller Pioneer DDJ-FLX4

It traces back further than the fraternity, too. Karl took MIT's "DJ History, Technique, and Technology" course and appeared in an MIT student DJ showcase video before it became a standing hobby: apartment sessions, the Williamsburg rooftop set below, and a full DJ booth at the Möbius Industries NYC open house gala.

Side profile of Karl DJing at the Mobius Industries gala, purple event lighting
Close-up of Karl's hands on a DJ mixer at the Mobius Industries gala
Karl DJing at the Mobius Industries gala with guests chatting nearby
Möbius Industries NYC open house gala, June 2026
Karl practicing DJing solo on a rooftop with the Manhattan skyline behind him
Solo rooftop practice, NYC
Karl DJing at a nighttime rooftop gathering in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg rooftop set

54 discographies and counting

Separately from DJing, Karl has kept a running habit since 2023: pick an artist, and listen to their entire discography start to finish, in chronological order. It is a screenshot-tracked list, 54 artists so far and likely an undercount of his real total, spanning classic rock, soul and funk, grunge, Tejano, bedroom pop, hip-hop, R&B, and reggaeton. Below is the actual list, in no particular order.

Full-discography deep dives, chronologically, since 2023

  • The Marías
  • Sara Bareilles
  • Not For Radio
  • Creedence Clearwater Revival
  • The Doobie Brothers
  • Silver
  • Boston
  • Gloria Gaynor
  • berlioz
  • Ambrosia
  • Nirvana
  • Selena
  • Steely Dan
  • The Smiths
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • The Internet
  • Jungle
  • Faye Webster
  • Daft Punk
  • TV Girl
  • Men I Trust
  • Jamiroquai
  • Sade
  • feeble little horse
  • Khruangbin
  • The Police
  • PinkPantheress
  • Wallows
  • Clairo
  • Jordan Ward
  • Nia Archives
  • Daniel Caesar
  • Anderson .Paak
  • Kali Uchis
  • Joji
  • Travis Scott
  • Dominic Fike
  • Surf Curse
  • The Neighbourhood
  • Eagles
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Baby Keem
  • A$AP Rocky
  • Frank Ocean
  • Phoebe Bridgers
  • SZA
  • Tyler, The Creator
  • Bad Bunny
  • Cage The Elephant
  • Gorillaz
  • Playboi Carti
  • Kanye West
  • Kendrick Lamar
  • The Weeknd

Travel

A solo surf trip to Portugal, Lisbon and Ericeira, in June 2026, which turned into as much of a food trip as a surf trip, including a hands-on Portuguese pastry class making pastéis de nata. A snowboard trip to Mammoth, CA in March 2026 with friends, granite peaks and all. A snowboard trip to Chile in August 2026. Somewhere in there, Ultra Music Festival in Miami, two years running.

Karl in a Home Cooking Lisbon apron, pouring custard into pastry shells during a pasteis de nata cooking class
Karl holding a plate of two pasteis de nata in a Lisbon cafe
Three men at a snowy Mammoth, CA mountain summit with snowboards, granite peaks in the background
Mammoth, CA, March 2026

Cooking, hosting, and everything else

Beyond the trips and the turntables: cooking, arts and crafts, raves and live music, and a lot of time spent with friends. In July 2026 he threw a rooftop party in New York and gave an impromptu announcement to the crowd, the kind of thing that happens when you are the one who planned it.

Cooking Hosting Raves & live music Arts & crafts Time with friends
Karl giving an announcement into a microphone at a rooftop party he hosted, crowd cheering around him, NYC skyline at dusk
Education & MIT Background

From Tradewinds Slam Poetry Night to Killian Court

Karl in MIT cap and gown holding his diploma case in Killian Court
Karl pumping his fist while walking past a large MIT sign at graduation

MIT School of Engineering

BS in Computer Science & Engineering, September 2021 to June 2025, 4.4 cumulative GPA. Graduated in person at MIT's June 2025 commencement in Killian Court, then started full-time at Möbius Industries the following Monday. Currently pursuing a Master of Engineering (MEng) in CS&E, concentrating in Machine Learning and AI, September 2025 to June 2026.

Theta Tau

Treasurer, Feb–Dec 2024, managing roughly $185–200K in member dues per semester across 50+ brothers and filing the chapter's IRS Form 990. Also served as Brotherhood Chair at one point.

The chapter reaffiliated with Phi Kappa Psi in spring 2025, after Karl's time as an active member. A minor organizational footnote, not a story in its own right.

VEX Robotics

High school main programmer, co-founder, and team lead, the earliest evidence of the robotics interest that runs through everything else here.

Speech & Debate

Competed in both Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas formats.

Slam Poetry

A regular at "Tradewinds Slam Poetry Night," with solo sets at the mic and plenty of goofing around with the rest of the troupe.

A younger Karl standing alone on stage at a microphone, Tradewinds Slam Poetry Night sign beside him
Tradewinds Slam Poetry Night, solo set
A group of high school students posed on stage with a younger Karl lying on the ground in front making a joking pose
The slam poetry troupe, mid-joke