I am a full professor at the KIT and heading the chair "Autonomous Learning Robots" since Jan. 2020. Before that, I was group leader at the Bosch Center for AI and industry on campus professor at the University of Tübingen (from March to Dec. 2019) and full professor at the University of Lincoln in the UK (2016-2019). I completed my PhD in 2012 at the TU Graz and was afterwards PostDoc and Assistant Professor at the TU Darmstadt.

My research is therefore focused on the intersection of machine learning, robotics and human-robot interaction. My goal is to create data-efficient machine learning algorithms that that are suitable for complex robot domains. A strong focus of my research is to develop new methods that allow a human non-expert to intuitively teach a robot complex skills as well as to allow a robot to learn how to assist and collaborate with humans in an intelligent way. In my research, I always aim for a strong theoretical basis for my developed algorithms which are derived from first order principles. Yet, I also believe that an exhaustive assessment of the quality of an algorithm in a practical application is of equal importance.