Following our Spring School 2025 of the research semester programme on Control Theory and Reinforcement Learning, we have a general workshop on Themes across Control and Reinforcement Learning.
Register here for the workshop
We invite contributions for talks and/or posters from practitioners in theory and applications in these fields. The organisers will allot talks based on topic and available slots. Attendance without presenting is welcome as well.
Ann Nowé graduated from the University of Ghent in 1987, where she studied mathematics with optional courses in computer science. She then became research assistant at the University of Brussels where she finished her PhD in 1994 in collaboration with Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. The subject of her PhD is located in the intersection of Computer Science (A.I.), Control Theory (Fuzzy Control) and Mathematics (Numerical Analysis, Stochastic Approximation). After a period of 3 years as senior research assistant at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), she became a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research-Flanders (F.W.O.). Nowadays, She is a professor both in the Computer Science Department of the faculty of Sciences as in the Computer Science group of the Engineering Faculty. She coordinates the project CTRLXAI, on automated controller generation at the intersection of control engineering and machine learning.
Bert Kappen completed his PhD in theoretical particle physics in 1987 at the Rockefeller University in New York. From 1987 until 1989 he worked as a scientist at the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Since 2004 he is full professor on machine learning and neural networks at the science faculty of the Radboud University. In 1998, he co-founded the company Smart Research that commercializes applications of neural networks and machine learning.
Bert Kappen conducts research on neural networks, Bayesian machine learning, stochastic control theory and computational neuroscience. Currently, he is investigating ways to use quantum mechanics for a new generation of quantum machine learning algorithms and control methods for quantum computing.
Davide Grossi is an associate professor (adjunct hoogleraar) in Multi-Agent Decision Making, affiliated to the Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen . He is a member of the Multi-Agent Systems Group, and of the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials Center (CogniGron).
At the University of Amsterdam he is an associate professor affiliated to the Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics (ACLE), and the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC).
Frans A. Oliehoek is Associate Professor at Delft University of Technology, where he is a leader of the sequential decision making group, a scientific director of the Mercury machine learning lab, and director and co-founder of the ELLIS Unit Delft. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science (2010) from the University of Amsterdam (UvA), and held positions at various universities including MIT, Maastricht University and the University of Liverpool. Frans' research interests revolve around intelligent systems that learn about their environment via interaction, building on techniques from machine learning, AI and game theory. He has served as PC/SPC/AC at top-tier venues in AI and machine learning, and currently serves as associate editor for JAIR and AIJ. He is a Senior Member of AAAI, and was awarded a number of personal research grants, including a prestigious ERC Starting Grant.
Harri Lähdesmäki is an Associate Professor (tenured) in Department of Computer Science at Aalto University, where he leads the Computational Systems Biology research group. He works on probabilistic machine learning with applications in biomedicine and molecular biology. Publications can be found from the research group web page and google scholar. His research interests include: probabilistic machine learning, deep generative models, artificial intelligence, computational biology, and bioinformatics. For more information, see the research group page.
Jens Kober is an associate professor at TU Delft, Netherlands. He is member of the Cognitive Robotics department (CoR) and the TU Delft Robotics Institute.
Jens is the recipient of the Robotics: Science and Systems Early Career Award 2022 and the IEEE-RAS Early Academic Career Award in Robotics and Automation 2018. His Ph.D. thesis has won the 2013 Georges Giralt PhD Award as the best Robotics PhD thesis in Europe in 2012.
Sean Meyn was raised by the beach in Southern California. Following his BA in mathematics at UCLA, he moved on to pursue a PhD with Peter Caines at McGill University. After about 20 years as a professor of ECE at the University of Illinois, in 2012 he moved to beautiful Gainesville. He is now Professor and Robert C. Pittman Eminent Scholar Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida, and director of the Laboratory for Cognition and Control. He also holds an Inria International Chair to support research with colleagues in France. His interests span many aspects of stochastic control, stochastic processes, information theory, and optimization. For the past decade, his applied research has focused on engineering, markets, and policy in energy systems.
Sofie Haesaert is an Assistant Professor in the Control Systems group of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology. Her research interests lie in the development of verification and control synthesis methods for cyber-physical systems. She holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master's degree in Systems and Control from Delft University of Technology, both cum laude. As a master's degree student, Haesaert spent a summer doing research at the University of Texas Arlington (USA). Haesaert obtained her PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in 2017 and then went to Caltech (USA) for 17 months to do a postdoc. In 2018, Haesaert returned to TU/e to become Assistant Professor in the Control Systems group.
09:15 - 09:45: Registration and tea/coffee
09:45 - 10:00: Welcome
10:00 - 11:00: Sean Meyn
11:00 - 11:30: Break
11:30 - 12:30: Contributed talks
12:30 - 14:00: Lunch and Poster session
14:00 - 14:40: Jens Kober
14:40 - 15:20: Sofie Haesert
15:20 - 15:50: Break
15:50 - 16:30: Bert Kappen
16:30 - 18:00: Posters and Discussion with drinks and bites
09:30 - 10:00: Registration and tea/coffee
10:00 - 11:00: Ann Nowé
11:00 - 11:30: Break
11:30 - 12:30: Contributed talks
12:30 - 14:00: Lunch and Poster session
14:00 - 15:00: Harri Lähdesmäki
15:00 - 15:30: Break
15:30 - 16:10: Frans Oliehoek
16:10 - 16:50: Davide Grossi
16:50 - 18:00: Posters and Discussion with drinks
Click the link for more information about the Research Semester Programme "Control Theory and Reinforcement Learning: Connections and Challenges".
