This is an archived version of the Machine Learning Lab website for documentation purposes. The host is in no way affiliated with the University of Freiburg, its Faculty of Engineering or any of its members.

Academic Career

  • 1986 - 1992 Computer science study at the Technical University of Karlsruhe
  • 1992 - 1996 Research Assistant, University of Karlsruhe, Prof. W. Menzel
  • 1996 Dissertation 'Selbständig lernende neuronale Steuerungen', TH Karlsruhe, degree: summa cum laude
  • 1997 - 2002: Research Assitant (C1) University of Karlsruhe
  • 1998 Research Stay at CMU, Prof. Andrew Moore (July - October)
  • 1999 Research Stay at GMD Berlin, Prof. Dr. K. Müller (Sept.- Oct.)
  • 2002: Professor (C3) for Computational Intelligence, University of Dortmund
  • 2003: Professor (C4) for Neuroinformatics, University of Osnabrueck
  • 2006 Research Stay at USC, LA, Prof. Stefan Schaal
  • 2006 Research Stay at Stanford University, Prof. Sebastian Thrun
  • 2009: Professor (W3) for Machine Learning, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg
  • 2010: Co-Founder Cognit- lab for learning machines
  • 2011: Research Stay at CSIRO, Sydney (Grant for Distinguished Scientists)
  • 2013: Sabbatatical at AI startup in London(bought by Google in early 2014), now scietific consultant

Organisation of scientific events

  • Organizing Committee Simulation League RoboCup 2001
  • Organizing Chair Simulation League RoboCup 2003
  • RoboCup Symposium 2004
  • NIPS-Workshop on RL Benchmarking 2005
  • 2006 Dagstuhl Seminar Multi-Robot Systems: Perception, Behaviors, Learning, and Action (together with U. Schwiegelhohn, Univ. Dortmund, H.-D. Burkhard, HU Berlin, M. Veloso, CMU)
  • 2009 Dagstuhl Seminar Algorithmic Methods for Cooperative Distributed Systems (together with S. Feteke, Univ. Braunschweig, S. Fischer, U. Lübeck, Suri Subash, Univ. California)
  • 2014 7th Workshop on Guided-Self-Organisation, Dec. 2014, Freiburg (together w. Joschka Bödecker)

Memberships in scientific institutions

  • VDI GMA Ausschuss Neuronale Netze und Evolutinaere Algorihmen (since 1996)
  • Speaker of AG Lernen, DFG-SPP 1125 (2000-2006)
  • German Sector RoboCup, Speaker Simulation League (since 2002)
  • Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Quantiom Bioinformatics (since 2002)
  • Executive Committee Member of RoboCup (since 2003)
  • Trustee, RoboCup Federation (since 2008)

Program Committees / Reviewing

  • Programm committee member for several annual conferences: IJCAI, NIPS, ICML, AAAI, AAMAS, ICRA, IROS, RoboCup Symposium, ECAI, IDA, …
  • Associate Editor/ Area Chair ICML 2009, ICRA 2009, IJCAI 2013
  • Reviews for several journals, among them: Neural Networks, Transaction on neural networks, Transactions on Robotics, Neuro Computing, IJNS, Transactions on Control and Cybernetics, …
  • DFG
  • EU

Teaching courses at summerschools ...

  • 2009 Robot Learning Summer School, Lisbon
  • 2006 Interdisciplinary College Günne (IK). Reinforcement Learning (4 lectures)
  • 2005 UvA Amsterdam, Lecture on Reinforcement Learning for Control (1 lecture)
  • 2003 ACAI RoboCup Camp, Bremen, Germany (4 lectures)
  • 2002 European Summerschool on Cooperative Robotics, Lisbon, Portugal (4 lectures)

Invited Talks / Keynote Speeches

  • 2012 Keynote Speaker, EWRL Workshop at ICML 2012, Edinburgh
  • 2012 Honda, Offenburg
  • 2010 Internationaler Orthopäden Kongress, Leipzig
  • 2009 Dies Academicus, University Konstanz
  • 2009 RoboCup Graz. Overview on MidSize League
  • 2006 Juni, Niedersächsische Landesvertrung, Berlin. Soccer playing robots
  • 2005 November, Vortrag bei IGDA (International Game Developpers Assoc), Frankfurt
  • 2005 Juni, Interdisziplinäres Forum Heidelberg, Neurovisionen
  • 2004 September, KI 2004, Ulm, Germany (Keynote Speech)
  • 2004 April, Robotica 2004, Porto, Portugal (Keynote Speech)
  • 2004 April, GIBU-Treffen, Schloß Dagstuhl, Dagstuhl, Germany
  • 2004 February, Learning Workshop, Bielefeld, Germany
  • 2001 Eunite Workshop, Tenerife, Spain
  • 2001 Siemens Forum Munich
  • 2000 Siemens Forum Berlin

Awards/ Prizes

  • 2nd place Teaching Evaluation (Vorlesungsbewertung) Univ. Dortmund, WS 2003/04, 'Introduction to AI'
  • 2006 prize of University of Osnabrück for research impact
  • Best paper Award, Fbit 2007
  • RL Competition, 2007, Cart Pole
  • RoboCup (Robotic Soccer):
    • Simulation League 2D: 1st place World Championships (WC) 2005, 2007, 2008, 2nd place WC 2000, WC 2001, WC 2004, WC 2006, 3rd place WC 2002, WC 2003, 1st place German Open (GO) 2005, 2006, 2nd place GO 2001, GO 2002, 2003, 3rd place GO 2004
    • Simulation League 3D: 2nd place World Championship (WC) 2005, 1st place German Open (GO) 2005
    • Middle Size League: 1st place German Open (GO) 2005, GO 2004, Dutch Open 2005, 1st place Worldchampionships 2006 Bremen, 2007 Seattle, 3rd place 2008 Suzhou
  • 1st prize Technical Challenge Award at RoboCup 2006, 2007 and 2008 Middle Size League