Curriculum Vitae

Last updated on Jul 5, 2022

Current Positions

DeepMind Chair of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK
Visiting Associate Professor, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Professional History

Since 10/2019: DeepMind Chair of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK
10/2018 – 12/2019: Senior Lecturer, Department of Computing, Imperial College London, UK
10/2016 – 12/2019: Scientific Advisor, PROWLER.io
07/2015 – 09/2018: Lecturer, Department of Computing, Imperial College London, UK
10/2014 – 06/2015: Imperial College Research Fellow, Department of Computing, Imperial College London, UK
09/2013 – 09/2014: Departmental Research Fellow, Department of Computing, Imperial College London, UK
12/2011 – 08/2013: Group Leader, Department of Computer Science, TU Darmstadt, Germany
02/2010 – 12/2011: Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
02/2010 – 04/2011: Adjunct Researcher, Intel Labs, Seattle, WA, USA

Academic History

10/2006 – 12/2009: PhD in Machine Learning, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany Thesis: Efficient Reinforcement Learning using Gaussian Processes
09/2007 – 12/2009: Visiting researcher, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK
10/2006 – 08/2007: Graduate student at the MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany
10/2000 – 08/2006: MEng in Computer Science, Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Germany Thesis: An Online-Computation Approach to Optimal Finite-Horizon State-Feedback Control of Nonlinear Stochastic Systems

Prizes, Awards, Fellowships

Best Student Paper Award at AISTATS (2021)
Honorable Mention Award for Outstanding Paper at ICML (2020)
The President’s Award for Outstanding Early Career Researcher, Imperial College London (2018)
Best Student Paper Award at ICCAS (2016)
Microsoft PhD Fellowship (2016)
Google Faculty Research Award (2015)
ICML Reviewer Award (2015)

Imperial College Research Fellowship (2014)
Best Paper Award (Cognitive Robotics) at ICRA (2014)
NIPS Best Reviewer Award (2013)

Keynotes, Tutorials and Plenary Talks

Keynote at RSC 2022
Tutorial at Sargent Summer School 2022
Tutorial at NeurIPS 2020
Keynote at 22nd Information-Based Induction Sciences Workshop (IBIS), Nagoya, Japan, 2019
Keynote at Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Telecom ParisTech, France, 2019
Tutorial on Bayesian Optimization at the Deep Learning Indaba, Kenyatta University Nairobi, Kenya, 2019
Tutorial on Gaussian Processes at Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania, 2018
Keynote at OxWaSP CDT Machine Learning Symposium, UK, 2018
Keynote at eScience Symposium, Netherlands, 2017
Tutorial on Mathematics for Machine Learning at Deep Learning Indaba, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 2017 slides, video
Tutorial at WASP Machine Learning Summer School, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, 2017 slides GP, slides BO, slides research talk
Keynote at Machine Learning Meetup, London, UK, 2017
Keynote at Gaussian Process Summer School, University of Sheffield, UK, 2015 slides, notes, video
Keynote at Sloan Summit, London Business School, UK, 2015
Keynote at EPSRC CSML Annual Workshop, UK, 2015
Tutorial at Machine Learning Summer School, Chalmers University, Sweden, 2015 [slides]
Highlights Talk at AISTATS, Iceland, 2014
Tutorial and Keynote at Machine Learning Summer School on Big Data, Tunisia, 2013 [slides]

Outreach and Public Understanding of Science

Moderating a panel of “Women in AI” (2020)
Panellist at “AI for Sustainable Developemnt” at Bloomsbury Festival (2020)
Organization of a public Panel on AI for Sustainable Development at CogX (2020)
Judge at “Teens in AI” in Nairobi, Kenya (2019)
Organization of a public Panel on Ethics in AI (2018)
AI Panelist at Comic Con (2017)
Lecture at Sutton Trust Summer School (2016)
Imperial College Science Festival (2014)
University of Washington Industrial Affiliates (2010, 2011)
Intel Labs Open House (2010). Check out the Seattle Times video and the article in the Puget Sound Business Journal

In the News

Memberships and Committees

Since 2021: Chair of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee, Department of Computer Science, University College London
Since 2021: Advisory board, Doctoral Training Programme (Data Science) at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS)
Since 2020: ELLIS Fellow
Since 2020: Deputy Director of UCL’s Centre for Artificial Intelligence
Since 2018: Leadership team of Queer in AI
2018 – 2019: Director of the Machine Learning Lab at the Data Science Institutes, Imperial College London
2018 – 2019: Co-Leader of the AI Center of Excellence at Imperial College London
2017 – 2019: Speaker of the Machine Learning Initiative at Imperial College
2015 – 2019: Centre for Process Systems Engineers
2014 – 2017: Management Committee of Imperial College’s Robotics Network
2014 – 2019: Open Access Committee at Imperial College
Since 2013: EPSRC Network on Computational Statistics and Machine Learning
Since 2012: Steering Committee of the European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning

Community Service

Conference Co-Organization

Since 2022: Elected member of ICML Board
2022: Program Chair of International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)
2021: Tutorials Chair of Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)
2020: EXPO Co-Chair of the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)
2019: Machine Learning Summer School (MLSS)
2013: Co-Organizer of the International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM)
2013: Workshops Chair of the Robotics: Science & Systems Conference (RSS)
2013: Co-Organizer of the International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines (AMAM)
2012: Program Chair of the European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL)

Workshop Co-Organization

2022: ICML Workshop on Continuous-Time Methods for Machine Learning
2021: ICRA Workshop on Bridging the Gap between Data-driven and Analytical Physics-based Grasping and Manipulation
2020: Machine Learning for Nowcasting
2019: Workshop on Structure & Priors in Reinforcement Learning at ICLR
2018: Workshop on Closing the Loop on Human-Robot Symbiosis: Human/Robot in-the-loop Machine Learning at IROS
2018: Panel on Ethics in AI
2017: Workshop on Data-Efficient Reinforcement Learning at DALI
2016: Workshop on Data-Efficient Machine Learning at ICML
2016: Workshop on Locomotion and Manipulation with Complex Robotic Systems in the Real World
2016: 1st UK Manipulation Workshop
2014: Workshop on Novel Trends and Applications in Reinforcement Learning at NIPS
2013: Workshop on Advances in Machine Learning for Sensorimotor Control at NIPS
2009: Workshop on Probabilistic Approaches for Robotics and Control

Mentoring

Designed and implemented mentorship program for new reviewers at ICLR 2022.
Mementor (since 2020)
Black in AI (since 2020)
Deep Learning Indaba (since 2017)
ICLR 2020
ICML 2020
NeurIPS 2019-2020
African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (since 2018)

Area Chair, Action Editor, Associate Editor

2021: ICML, JMLR
2020: ICLR, NeurIPS
2019: NeurIPS
2018: AISTATS, ICML
2017: CoRL
2016: NIPS
2015: ICRA, NIPS
2014: ICRA
2013: ACML

Program Committee

2019: CoRL
2017: RSS
2015: RLDM
2014: AAAI, ACML
2013: ADPRL, IJCAI, RSS
2012: ACML, ECML/PKDD, ICPRAM, RSS
2011: RSS
2010: AAAI, RSS

Reviewing

2019: ICML, CoRL, NeurIPS
2017: JMLR, NIPS, RSS
2016: AISTATS, EWRL, IJRR, JMLR, MLJ, RSS
2015: AISTATS, ICML, JMLR, Cambridge University Press
2014: AISTATS, Automatica, ICML, JBHI, MLJ, NIPS, RAS
2013: ICRA, IROS, KI Magazine, MLJ, NIPS, Springer
2012: AISTATS, Humanoids, ICML, IEEE-TPAMI, NIPS, Springer
2011: CDC, ECC, ICML, ICRA, IROS, MLJ, NIPS
2010: ACC, AISTATS, IJRR
2009: AURO, CDC, ICML, ICRA, SCI, IEEE-TPAMI
2008: Adaptive Behavior, IPSN, NIPS, RO-MAN
2007: IEE Electronic Letters

I also frequently review grant proposals (e.g., EU, national funding agencies).

Former Students

James Wilson (PhD, 2022). Moved to Meta AI.
Janith Petangoda (PhD, 2022). Moved to University of Cambridge.
Alexander Terenin (PhD, 2021). Moved to University of Cambridge.
Steindór Sæmundsson (PhD, 2021). Moved to shiftlab.ai.
Sanket Kamthe (PhD, 2021). Moved to JP Morgan.
Riccardo Moriconi (PhD, 2021). Moved to Artificialy.
Simon Olofsson (PhD, 2020). Moved to Facebook.
Hugh Salimbeni (PhD, 2019). Moved to G-Research.
Benjamin Chamberlain (PhD, 2018). Moved to Twitter.
Roberto Calandra (PhD, 2016). Moved to Facebook AI Research.