I’m Valentin! I am a Postdoc at the Computational Robotics Lab at ETH. I am working on real-world multi-agent task and motion planning, and am interested in how to deal with uncertainty, and how to get robots to be adaptive to changing circumstances. This includes learning based methods (RL/IL/VLAs) and classicel methods, and what I find most interesting: finding combinatoins to leverage the strengths of either approaches.

I am always looking for good students - please reach out if you are interested in working with me!

Previously, I was in Marc Toussaint’s LIS group at TU Berlin, working on task and motion planning (TAMP) using optimization techniques, in addition to sampling based planners, with inspiration from control theory. I was associated with IntCDC, and was involved in several projects at the intersection of robotics and architecture.

In 2021, I (virtually) visited Jon Gammell’s ESP lab at the University of Oxford.

Generally, I like making robotics code go fast. Most of the time, the code I am looking at has strong relations to control systems, optimization, trajectory planning, or numerical methods. Before taking on my current position, I have been a mechanical engineering student at ETH Zurich, and have focussed on robotics, systems and control. I did a few internships at various companies (notably Amazon and BCG Gamma), and I was a PhD resident at intrinsic.ai working in the motion and controls team.

I like cycling, used to row competitively, like all kinds of other sports, and to my friends delight I am an avid cook.

I am looking around a bit for things/jobs to do after my postdoc - please reach out if you are looking for anything from motion planning/control/optimization in robotics or generally anything where code should go fast. I am quite easily motivated for any kind of intellectually challenging work. Preferably in Zurich/Switzerland, and ideally with a mix of homeoffice and in person work.

Publications

Also see my Google Scholar Profile here.

Under review

Journals

Conferences

Workshops