Control Theory and Reinforcement Learning: Connections and Challenges - workshops

Prof. Dr. 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).

Dr. 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.

Prof. Dr. 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.

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: TBA

15:20 - 15:50: Break

15:50 - 16:30: Bert Kappen

16:30 - 18:00: Posters and Discussion with Apero

18:30 - 21:00: Dinner

09:30 - 10:00: Registration and tea/coffee

10:00 - 11:00: TBA

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 tea/coffee