News & Awards

Rationality Enhancement News 23-09-2019 Julian Skirzynski joined our lab Welcome, Julian! Julian is a researcher at Rationality Enhancement group. He is interested in scientific interests include modeling higher level cognitive processes, synergies between cognitive science and machine learning, explainable AI, and improving cognitive skills. Julian Skirzynski

Dynamic Locomotion News 17-09-2019 Workshop 'Integrating neuroscience and biomechanics: ...' Workshop organisation Charlotte Le Mouel Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Embodied Vision News 13-09-2019 Cathrin Elich receives DAGM Best Master Thesis Award Cathrin Elich received this year's DAGM Best Master thesis award at the GCPR 2019 conference for her thesis "3D Birds-Eye-View Instance Segmentation" which she wrote at RWTH Aachen University. Cathrin Elich

Dynamic Locomotion News 13-09-2019 Humanoids 2019: Trunk Pitch Oscillations in Humanoids Humanoids 2019: Trunk Pitch Oscillations in Humanoids Trunk Pitch Oscillations in Humanoids: Oezge Drama will present her work at Humanoids 2019, in Toronto, Canada. Oezge Drama Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Dynamic Locomotion News 12-09-2019 CoRL2019: A Learnable Safety Measure CoRL2019: A Learnable Safety Measure Steve Heim and Alexander von Rohr will present 'A Learnable Safety Measure' at CoRL end of November 2019. Steve Heim Alexander von Rohr Sebastian Trimpe Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Rationality Enhancement News 09-09-2019 Yash Raj Jain returned to our lab! Welcome back, Yash! Yash Raj Jain first joined our lab for an internship on measuring and reverse-engineering metacognitive learning in 2018 and has since returned to us to continue his work as a researcher. Thanks, Yash! Yash is pursuing a dual major in Computer Science and Economics at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, India. Yash Raj Jain

Empirical Inference News 04-09-2019 Verleihung des Körber-Preises 2019 Bernhard Schölkopf erhält am 13. September den Körber-Preis im Hamburger Rathaus - im Gespräch mit Ranga Yogeshwar Hamburg, 2. September 2019. Den mit 1.000.000 Euro dotierten Körber-Preis für die Europäische Wissenschaft 2019 erhält der deutsche Physiker, Mathematiker und Informatiker Bernhard Schölkopf. Der Forscher am Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme in Tübingen hat mathematische Verfahren entwickelt, die maßgeblich dazu beitrugen, der Künstlichen Intelligenz (KI) zu ihren jüngsten Höhenflügen zu verhelfen. Weltweites Renommee erlangte Schölkopf mit sogenannten Support-Vektor-Maschinen. Bernhard Schölkopf Valerie Callaghan

Rationality Enhancement News 01-09-2019 Valkyrie Felso joined our lab Welcome, Val! Valkyrie Felso has joined our lab as a Ph.D. student working on techniques from reinforcement learning such as inverse reinforcement learning and shaping in order to help people improve their decisions. Welcome Valkyrie! Valkyrie Felso

Statistical Learning Theory Award 16-08-2019 Michel Perrot, Ulrike von Luxburg: Distinguished Paper Award at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2019) for the paper: "Boosting for Comparison-Based Learning"

News 16-08-2019 Isabel Valera appointed Group Leader of the new independent Probabilistic Learning Group The award-winning scientist specializes in research aiming to make machine learning methods more flexible, robust, and fair Isabel Valera Valerie Callaghan

Haptic Intelligence Award 15-08-2019 JHU Ph.D. student Neha Thomas receives a ten-month Fulbright grant to do research with the HI Department as a visiting Ph.D. student Neha Thomas

Dynamic Locomotion News 13-08-2019 Frontiers in Neurorobotics: Series Elastic Behavior of Biarticular Muscle-Tendon Structure in a Robotic Leg Frontiers in Neurorobotics: Series Elastic Behavior of Biarticular Muscle-Tendon ... Felix Ruppert Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Dynamic Locomotion News 05-08-2019 TR-O: Beyond Basins of Attraction: Quantifying Robustness of Natural Dynamics TR-O: Beyond Basins of Attraction: Quantifying Robustness of Natural Dynamics Steve Heim Alexander Badri-Spröwitz

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 02-08-2019 Peer Fischer is NanQiang lecturer at Xiamen University, China.

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 02-08-2019 Peer Fischer delivers Nianqiang Lecture at Xiamen University Prof. Fischer delivered the Nianqiang Lecture at the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, and the Center for Molecular Imaging and Translational Medicine, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen, P.R. China.

Rationality Enhancement News 27-07-2019 Decision advisor put to test In one of our JDM absracts we evaluated a decision advisor by ClearerThinking.org. We found out that it was successful at helping people avoid typical mistakes in making decisions. Gabriela Iwama Falk Lieder

Perceiving Systems News 26-07-2019 Siyu Tang appointed Tenure-track Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich The research group leader in the Perceiving Systems Department specializes in the development of computer-aided processes for the perception and digitisation of people and their activities in crowded scenes Siyu Tang

Perceiving Systems Embodied Vision News 26-07-2019 Ten papers accepted at ICCV 2019 The Perceiving Systems Department, the Embodied Vision Group and the Autonomous Vision Group at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems are well represented at one of the world’s leading computer vision conferences taking place in Seoul in October. Michael Black Andreas Geiger Jörg Stückler

News 23-07-2019 Multifunctional and Biodegradable Self-Propelled Protein Motors A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart developed new self-propelled motors from biologically derived materials. Due to the nanostructure of the protein materials and the physical and chemical properties of the fuel, their protein-based motors have a higher performance output, efficiency, and mobility lifetime than previously reported Marangoni motors. Abdon Pena-Francesch Joshua Giltinan Metin Sitti

Embodied Vision News 23-07-2019 New papers accepted at ICCV and GCPR 2019 We have 1 paper accepted at the International Conference for Computer Vision (ICCV'19) and 2 papers accepted for the German Conference on Pattern Recognition (GCPR'19). Deyao Zhu Cathrin Elich Michael Strecke Jörg Stückler

Physical Intelligence News 22-07-2019 Jiachen Zhang receives Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship The scientist working in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart will be supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for two years to continue his soft robotic research in Germany. Jiachen Zhang

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 20-07-2019 Congratulations: Dr. Tian Qiu becomes Cyber Valley Research group leader Tian Qiu has been appointed Cyber Valley Research Group Leader. He will lead the "Biomedical Microsystems" group at the University of Stuttgart. We wish him all the best! Tian Qiu

Haptic Intelligence Award 15-07-2019 Korea University Ph.D. students Jeong-Hyun Cho and Young-Eun Lee each receive a six-month grant to do research with the HI Department as a visiting Ph.D. student Jeong-Hyun Cho Young-Eun Lee

Haptic Intelligence Award 12-07-2019 Postdoc Yasemin Vardar wins the 2018 EuroHaptics Society prize for the best Ph.D. thesis in the field of haptics; she earned her doctorate with Cagatay Basdogan at Koc University in Turkey Yasemin Vardar

Haptic Intelligence News 12-07-2019 Yasemin Vardar wins the 2018 EuroHaptics Society Best Ph.D. Thesis Award She received the prize at the IEEE World Haptics Conference in Tokyo, Japan, on July 12, 2019 Yasemin Vardar Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Autonomous Learning News 10-07-2019 Article published in Frontiers in Neurorobotics Huanbo's paper 'Machine Learning for Haptics: Inferring Multi-Contact Stimulation From Sparse Sensor Configuration' was successfully published! Huanbo Sun Georg Martius

News 08-07-2019 Professor Ayusman Sen receives Humboldt Research Award During his stay in Germany, the Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Pennsylvania State University intends to continue his research on emergent phenomena, collective effects, and enzymatically-powered chemical motors. Siegfried Dietrich

Rationality Enhancement News 08-07-2019 REG visits Montréal This summer Montréal will be the stage for three important conferences concerning research in the fields of psychology, cognitive science, machine learning, cognitive modelling and decision making: the 4th Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making (RLDM), the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Sociey for Mathematical Psychology and the 17th Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Cognitive Modelling (MathPsych/ICCM), and the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci). As a matter of course, the Rationality Enhancement Group will be represented there as well. Maria Wirzberger Falk Lieder Yash Raj Jain Lin Xu Florian Mohnert Gabriela Iwama

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 05-07-2019 Kai Melde wins the 2019 Günter Petzow Prize.

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 05-07-2019 Kai Melde wins the 2019 Günter Petzow Prize The doctoral student in the Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Group received this prize during the 2019 Intelligent Systems Summer Colloquium Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Kai Melde Peer Fischer

News 03-07-2019 Katherine J. Kuchenbecker appointed Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems The Director of the Haptic Intelligence Department is the first female Managing Director in the institute’s history. Dr. Kuchenbecker's term is set to last 18 months, effective July 1, 2019. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Bernhard Schölkopf Valerie Callaghan

Empirical Inference News 03-07-2019 NeurIPS2019 Disentanglement Challenge kicks off - Bringing Disentanglement to the Real World Registration opened on June 28 and the Challenge runs until September 24. The Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, GoogleAI, and MILA Montreal have launched the Disentanglement Challenge. Registration is now open: sign up now and bring disentangled representations to the REAL world - with 20,000 euros in prize money and best paper awards! Joel Bessekon Akpo Stefan Bauer Karin Bierig Muhammad Waleed Gondal Arash Mehrjou Bernhard Schölkopf Valentin Volchkov Francesco Locatello Manuel Wüthrich Djordje Miladinovic

Physical Intelligence News 02-07-2019 Jellyfish-inspired robot wins Best Paper Award in prestigious Robotics Science & Systems Conference The scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart who invented Jellyfishbot win the Best Paper Award at a prestigious robotics conference and have their work published in Nature Communications. Their research holds great potential when investigating the impact of environmental changes in the ocean’s ecosystem. Another aim is for Jellyfishbot to be applied in the treatment of cancer. Metin Sitti Xiaoguang Dong Wenqi Hu Ziyu Ren Tianlu Wang Valerie Callaghan

Rationality Enhancement News 01-07-2019 Bastian Nowozimski joined our lab Welcome, Bastian! After getting his Bachelor's degree in Cognitive Science at the University of Tübingen, he is now proceeding to get his Master's degree. As a student assistant, he is supporting the Rationality Enhancement Group through his role as Lab and Study Coordinator. Bastian Nowozimski

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 01-07-2019 Jan-Philipp Günther receives travel grant from Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds Jan will visit Columbia University (Hess lab) in the US for four months as part of his PhD project on enzyme powered nano systems. Jan-Philipp Günther

News 01-07-2019 Scope of Cyber Valley research expanded to include intelligent biomedical microsystems The University of Stuttgart appoints Dr. Tian Qiu, a leading scientist in the field of minimally invasive biomedical microsystems, as Cyber Valley Research Group Leader Tian Qiu Valerie Callaghan

Empirical Inference Award 26-06-2019 Bernhard Schölkopf receives the Körber European Science Preis 2019.

Empirical Inference News 26-06-2019 Körber Prize 2019 goes to Bernhard Schölkopf The Körber Foundation honors the MPI-IS Director and Cyber Valley Scientist for his ground-breaking research in mathematical methods that have made a significant contribution to helping artificial intelligence reach its most recent heights. Bernhard Schölkopf Valerie Callaghan

Physical Intelligence News 25-06-2019 Novel approach to self-assembling mobile micromachines How the components come together depends on their design and shape and the resulting dielectrophoretic forces when exposed to an electric field. Metin Sitti Yunus Alapan Mehmet Berk Yigit

Haptic Intelligence Award 25-06-2019 Ph.D. students Alexis E. Block and Maria-Paola Forte win ROSCon 2019 diversity scholarships Alexis Block

Rationality Enhancement News 20-06-2019 Lab's first JDM submissions The Society of Judgement and Decision Making proudly hosts an Annual Meeting as interdisciplinary forum for decision analysts and researchers from various fields such as psychology, economics, or organizational studies. This year, it will take place in Montréal and we are very excited about our submitted abstracts on the Goal Characteristics (GC) questionnaire and the Decision Advisor. Both turned out really well! Gabriela Iwama Maria Wirzberger Falk Lieder

News 18-06-2019 Canada comes to Cyber Valley Canadian AI experts gain insights into Europe’s biggest research cooperation in the field of AI As part of the German Federal Foreign Office's Visitors' program, a group of Canadian AI experts visited the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems on Monday in Tübingen. Matthias Tröndle Valerie Callaghan

Empirical Inference Award 18-06-2019 Francesco Locatello, Stefan Bauer, Bernhard Schölkopf et. al.: ICML best paper award 2019 for the paper "Challenging Common Assumptions in the Unsupervised Learning of Disentangled Representations"

Smart Nanoplasmonics Award 12-06-2019 Laura Na Liu wins the European Materials Research Society's 2019 EU-40 Materials Prize.

Empirical Inference News 11-06-2019 MPI for Intelligent Systems Scientists among the winning team at world’s leading AI conference Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich, and Google Research Zurich receive the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). Francesco Locatello Stefan Bauer Bernhard Schölkopf Valerie Callaghan

Rationality Enhancement News 07-06-2019 Lab's first CCN submissions The Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN) will be held in Berlin in September this year and provide an interdisciplinary forum for understanding the computations that underlie complex behavior. We have submitted two abstracts that introduce our work on meta-cognitive reinforcement learning and computational models of goal pursuit. We look forward to present our work at this exciting occasion! Falk Lieder Yash Raj Jain Florian Mohnert Sanit Gupta Vasundhara Rakesh

Rationality Enhancement News 05-06-2019 Article in Scientific Reports published Our postdoc Maria Wirzberger recently published an article in the renowned Nature journal Scientific Reports. Congratulations, Maria! Maria Wirzberger

Haptic Intelligence News 04-06-2019 Alexis Block is teaching robots to give good hugs Scientist working in the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems receives great media feedback on her research Alexis Block Katherine J. Kuchenbecker

Rationality Enhancement News 01-06-2019 Lab's first Psychonomics submission Founded in 1959, the Psychonomic Society celebrates its 60th birthday this year. The Annual Meeting will be hosted in Montréal this year and we submitted an abstract on our Goal Characteristics (GC) questionnaire. We would be happy to join the celebration and proudly introduce our work! Gabriela Iwama Maria Wirzberger Falk Lieder

Empirical Inference Award 31-05-2019 Bernhard Schölkopf: honoured as one of the leading minds in German AI research.

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