Curriculum Vitae

Current Positions

• Research Director, Google DeepMind
• Google 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 02/2025: Research Director, Google DeepMind
• Since 10/2019: Google DeepMind Chair of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK
• 01/2024 - 01/2025: Director of Science & Innovation—Grand Challenges (Environment & Sustainability), The Alan Turing Institute, 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: Diplom (MSc) 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 Paper Award at FAccT (2023)
• 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 Sussex AI Day 2025
• Tutorial at Machine Learning Summer School 2023
• 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

• Outreach at local school in London (2023)
• Mentoring via A-COMPS programme (2022-2023)
• 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

• Interview by UCL AI Centre (2020)
• Interview by MIT Technology Review on Open AI’s Efforts to Robot Learning (2016)
• Interview with Xinhua News Agency on AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol (2016)

Memberships and Committees

• 2021 – 2024: Academic Co-Lead of UCL/DeepMind PhD program
• 2022 – 2024: Co-director of ELLIS Unit at UCL
• 2021 – 2024: 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
• 2020 – 2024: 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

Board Memberships

• Since 2025: Scientific Advisory Board, The Weather Generator
• Since 2025: Scientific Advisor, United Nations University Global AI Network
• Since 2024: Scientific Advisory Committee, National Oceanography Centre
• Since 2022: Elected member of ICML Board

Conference Co-Organization

• 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

• 2023: Workshop on Probabilistic Approaches in Weather and Climate Science
• 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

• AISTATS 2023
• Mentoring of high-school pupils via the A-COMPS programme
• 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)

(Senior) Area Chair, Action Editor, Associate Editor

• 2025: AISTATS, JMLR
• 2024: JMLR
• 2023: JMLR
• 2022: JMLR
• 2021: ICML, JMLR
• 2020: ICLR, NeurIPS
• 2019: NeurIPS
• 2018: AISTATS, ICML
• 2017: CoRL
• 2016: NeurIPS
• 2015: ICRA, NeurIPS
• 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, NeurIPS, RSS
• 2016: AISTATS, EWRL, IJRR, JMLR, MLJ, RSS
• 2015: AISTATS, ICML, JMLR, Cambridge University Press
• 2014: AISTATS, Automatica, ICML, JBHI, MLJ, NeurIPS, RAS
• 2013: ICRA, IROS, KI Magazine, MLJ, NeurIPS, Springer
• 2012: AISTATS, Humanoids, ICML, IEEE-TPAMI, NeurIPS, Springer
• 2011: CDC, ECC, ICML, ICRA, IROS, MLJ, NeurIPS
• 2010: ACC, AISTATS, IJRR
• 2009: AURO, CDC, ICML, ICRA, SCI, IEEE-TPAMI
• 2008: Adaptive Behavior, IPSN, NeurIPS, RO-MAN
• 2007: IEE Electronic Letters

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

Former Students and Research Fellows

• Jackie Kay (PhD, 2024). Moved to Google DeepMind.
• Yicheng Luo (PhD, 2024). Moved to Meta.
• Samuel Cohen (PhD, 2024). Moved to FairGen.
• Mihaela Rosca (PhD, 2023). Moved to Google DeepMind.
• 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.