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Alumni

Research Fellows (PostDocs)

2024

Dr. Valerio Modugno, Research Fellow, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 04/2022-08/2024
Next: UCL (UK), Teaching Lecturer
Research Topic: Legged Robot Learning (Control and Planning)
Supervisors Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary)

2022

Dr. Kirsty Ellis, Research Fellow, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 10/2020-02/2022
Next: Haply Robotics (Canada); Embedded Systems Research and Integration Engineer
Research Topic: Navigation Among Movable Objects using Search-Based Path Planning
Supervisors Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Danail Stoyanov (UCL-CS; secondary)

Research Assistants

2024

Sebastian Ægidius, Research Assistant, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 09/2023-09/2024
Next: University of Toronto (Canada), Research Assistant
Research Topic: Semantic Traversibility Estimation for Legged Robots
Supervisors Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary)

2023

Leon Yao, Research Assistant, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates:03/2022-09/2023
Next: InstaDeep (UK), Research Intern
Research Topic: Navigation Among Movable Objects using Reinforcement Learning
Supervisors Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Danail Stoyanov (UCL-CS; secondary)

PhD Students

2024

Luke Jonathan Beddow, PhD Student, UCL-EPSRC DTP
Dates: 09/2020-09/2024
Next: TBD
Research Topic: Learning-based Grasping of Grocery Items using Caging-inspired Gripper Design
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Helge Wurdemann (UCL-CS; secondary)
Sicelukwanda Zwane, PhD Student, UCL-CDT of Foundational AI
Dates: 09/2020-09/2024
Next: TBD
Research Topic: Safety-aware Learning in Real-world Robotics with Gaussian Processes
Supervisors: Marc Deisenroth (UCL-CS; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary)
Jackie Kay, PhD Student, UCL-CS/DeepMind
Dates: 09/2020-09/2024
Next: DeepMind (UK), Research Engineer
Research Topic: A Sociotechnical Perspective on Machine Learning from Human Imitation
Supervisors: Marc Deisenroth (UCL-CS; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary)

2022

Julius Sustarevas, PhD Student, UCL-CS/Arup
Dates: 09/2018-06/2022
Next: Automata (UK); Robotics Engineer - Control
Research Topic: Path and Motion Planning for Autonomous Mobile 3D Printing
Supervisors: Simon Julier (UCL-CS; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (IIT-HHCM; primary)
Vignesh Sushrutha Raghavan, PhD Student, Italian Institute of Technology and University of Pisa
Dates: 09/2017-06/2022
Next: Italian Institute of Technology (Italy); Postdoc
Research Topic: Reconfigurable Robot Path Planning
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Nikos Tsagarakis (IIT-HHCM; primary), Darwin Caldwell (IIT-HHCM; secondary)

Visiting PhD Students

2024

Panagiotis Trakas, PhD Student, UPatras, Greece
Dates: 05/2024-06/2024
Research Topic: Adaptive Cruise Control for Mobile Ground Robots
Supervisors at UCL: Dimitrios Kanoulas(UCL-CS; host), Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS).

2023

Wanming Yu, PhD Student, Edinburgh Centre for Robotics
Dates: 05/2023-07/2023
Research Topic: Reinforcement Learning Control for Robot Locomotion.
Supervisors at UCL: Dimitrios Kanoulas, Alex Li (UCL-CS; host).
Olga Napolitano, PhD Student, University of Pisa
Dates: 04/2023-06/2023
Research Topic: Active Sensing for Model Learning on Quadrupeds Robot.
Supervisors at UCL: Dimitrios Kanoulas, Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; host)

2022

Giovanni Franzese, PhD Student, University of Pisa
Dates: 09/2022-10/2022
Research Topic: Learning from Demonstration via GP.
Supervisors at UCL: Prof. Marc Desenorth (UCL-CS; host), Dr. Yasemin Bekiroglu (UCL-CS; host), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; host)
Fernando Acero Marchesotti, PhD Student, Edinburgh Centre for Robotics
Dates: 03/2022-06/2022
Research Topic: Develop and test reinforcement learning control policies for robot locomotion.
Supervisors: Alex Li (UCL-CS; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; host)

MSc Students

2024

Zeyu Chen, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2024-09/2024
NExt: N/A
Research Topic: Acquiring Tactile Skills on a Quadruped Robot
Supervisors: Thomas Thuruthel (UCL-CS; primary), Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; secondary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary)
Karim Hammoud, MSc student in Systems Engineering for the Internet of Things, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2024-09/2024
Research Topic: Human-like Robot Interaction: A Framework for Generating Natural Robot Dynamics Using Bilateral Control and Transformer Neural Networks
Supervisors: Elia Gatti (UCL-CS; primary), Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; secondary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary)
He Liang, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2024-09/2024
Next: Oxford Univ. (UK), PhD Student
Research Topic: Language Conditioned Diffusion Planner for Quadruped Mobile Manipulation
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Jianwei Liu (UCL-CS; secondary)
Jeffrey Li, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2024-09/2024
Research Topic: Quadruped Skill Synthesis from Single Video Demonstration
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Maria Stamatopoulou (UCL-CS; secondary)
Jianheng Liu, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2024-09/2024
Next: Huawei Noah's Ark Lab (UK), Research Intern
Research Topic: World Models for Navigation
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Maria Stamatopoulou, Stuart Shanks, Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; secondary)
Yuzhou Cheng, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2024-09/2024
Research Topic: Visual Localization for Mobile Robots with Gaussian Splatting
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Jianhao Jiao (UCL-CS; secondary)

2023

Michael Adlerstein, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2023-09/2023
Next: Italian Institute of Technology (Italy), Research Intern
Research Topic: Enhancing Locomotion with Planar Insights: A Reinforcement Learning Approach
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Maria Stamatopoulou, Stuart Shanks, Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; secondary)
Xiang Long, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2023-09/2023
Research Topic: Integrating Affordances and Object Identification for Autonomous Grasping
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Luke Beddow, Denis Hadjivelichkov (UCL-CS; secondary)
Jacob Nash, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2023-09/2023
Research Topic: Vision-Based Fire Safety Equipment Exploration using Quadrupedal Robots
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Jianwei Liu, Jonathan Embley-Riches (UCL-CS; secondary)
Leon Yao, MSc student in Machine Learning, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2023-09/2023
Next: InstaDeep (UK), Research Intern
Research Topic: Efficient Bayesian Neural Networks for Outdoor Semantic Scene Understanding Tasks in Robotics
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Denis Hadjivelichkov (UCL-CS; secondary)
Minghan Zhao, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2023-09/2023
Research Topic: Clustering based Fast Plane Segmentation with PointNet++ from Noisy Point Cloud Data
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Jianwei Liu, Jonathan Embley-Riches, Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; secondary)

2022

Wing Chung Law, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2022-09/2022
Next: ecoSUB Robotics Ltd; Robotics & Embedded Software Engineer
Research Topic: Vision-based Robotic Grasping with Deep Reinforcement Learning
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Luke Beddow (UCL-CS; secondary)
Jianwei Liu, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2022-09/2022
Next: PhD Student; UCL-CS
Research Topic: Path Planning for Quadrupedal Robots
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; secondary)
Stuart Shanks, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2022-09/2022
Next: PhD Student; UCL-CS
Research Topic: Quadrupedal Robot Locomotion via Model-Predictive Control
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; secondary)
Feilong Yan, MSc student in Machine Learning, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2022-09/2022
Next: CYENS Centre of Excellence; Research Intern
Research Topic: Deep Reinforcement Learning for Advanced Quadrupedal Locomotion from Vision
Supervisors: Vassilis Vassiliades (CYENS; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary)

2021

Jack Cook, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2021-09/2021
Next: Medtronic Digital Surgery; Computer Vision Engineer/Researcher
Research Topic: Vision-Based Drone Landing
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Luke Beddow (UCL-CS; secondary)
Alejandro Halpern Pastor, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2021-09/2021
Next: Iprova (UK); Invention Engineer
Research Topic: RL-Based Whole-Body Control
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Denis Hadjivelichkov (UCL-CS; secondary)
Zinan Liu, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2021-09/2021
Next: Jaguar Land Rover (UK); Product Engineer Software
Research Topic: Vision-Based Drone Landing
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Luke Beddow (UCL-CS; secondary)
Yuhang Ma, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2021-09/2021
Next: NetEase, Inc (China)
Research Topic: Navigation Among Movable Objects
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Simon Julier (UCL-CS; secondary), Kirsty Ellis (UCL-CS; secondary)
Arundathi Shaji Shanthini, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2021-09/2021
Next: Oxford Robotics Institute (UK), Engineer
Research Topic: 3D Object Localization
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Simon Julier (UCL-CS), Kirsty Ellis (UCL-CS)
Edoardo Barbieri, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2021-09/2021
Next: Canonical (UK); Product Manager
Research Topic: Visual and Force/Torque-Based Terrain Segmentation
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Simon Julier (UCL-CS; secondary)

2020

Martin Craiu Muller, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2020-10/2020
Next: Agile Robots AG; Robotic Application Engineer
Research Topic: Whole-body Grasping for a Robot Manipulator
Denis Hadjivelichkov, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2020-09/2020
Next: PhD student at UCL-CS, UK
Research Topic: Whole-Body Mobile Manipulation with Reinforcement Learning
Wenguang Lin, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2020-09/2020
Next: Goldman Sachs (Facilities Analyst)
Research Topic: SLAM Autocompletion and Exploration
Supervisors: Simon Julier (UCL-CS; primary), Achim Lilienthal (Orebro Univ.), Mikael Magnusson (Orebro Univ.)
Jingyi Liu, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2020-09/2020
Next: Huawei Dongguan (China); Software Engineer
Research Topic: Garbage Segmentation and Localization for Mobile Robot Grasping
Yusheng Tian, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2020-09/2020
Next: KUKA (Shanghai, China); Software Engineer
Research Topic: Navigation Among Movable Objects
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Simon Julier (UCL-CS; secondary)
Xuezhi Wei, MSc student in Robotics and Computation, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 01/2020-09/2020
Research Topic: Falling Object Tracking and Mapping
Supervisors: Simon Julier (UCL-CS; primary), Zhibin Lu (UCL-CS), Stefan Leutenegger (Imperial-CS)

BSc/MEng Students

2025

Takuya Boehringer, BSc student, University College London (UCL), Department of EEE
Dates: 05/2024-04/2025
Research Topic: Immersive Teleoperation Framework for Locomanipulation Tasks
Supervisors: Valerio Modugno (UCL-CS; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary)

2023

Shirui Lyu, BSc student, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2022-04/2023
Research Topic: Data-driven Methods on Legged Robot Path Planning
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary), Denis Hadjivelichkov (UCL-CS; secondary), Jianwei Liu (UCL-CS; secondary)

2022

Wenjie Chen, BSc student, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2021-04/2022
Research Topic: ChessRobot: Visual Chess Piece Localization for Playing Chess
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary)
Mohammad Syed, MEng student, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2021-04/2022
Research Topic: ChessRobot: Pick-and-Place Chess Pieces using 3D Vision on a Robot Manipulator
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary)

2021

Chirag Hegde, MEng student in Computer Science, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2021-04/2022
Next: Boston Consulting Group (USA), Independent Contractor
Research Topic: Analysing the Efficacy of Different Methods of Task Allocation Between Drones in a Multi-agent Task
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary)
Ziheng (Henry) Zhang, BSc student in Computer Science, University College London (UCL)
Dates: 05/2020-04/2021
Next: Tencent (China), Software Engineer
Research Topic: Navigation Among Movable Obstacles in Photorealistic Simulation
Primary Supervisor: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; primary)
Andrei Lazar, MEng student in Computer Science, University College London (UCL)
Dates: 05/2020-04/2021
Next: UCL-CS (UK), Research Assistant
Research Topic: Rover Simulation
Supervisors: Rae Harbird (UCL-CS; primary), Simon Julier (UCL-CS; secondary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary), Sebastian Friston (UCL-CS; secondary)
Linghong Yao, BSc student in Mechanical Engineering, University College London (UCL)
Dates: 05/2020-06/2021
Next: Research Assistant at UCL-CS
Research Topic: Scene Segmentation for UAVs
Primary Supervisor: Yuanchang Liu (UCL-MechEng; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary)

High School Students

2024

Alban Coudray, High-School Student, Orleans Park School in Twickenham
Dates: 07/2024
Research Topic: Simulation Environment Models for Quadruped Locomotion
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; host)

2023

Samuel Aron, High-School Student, Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle de Londres
Dates: 07/2024
Research Topic: QR Markers for Legged Robots
Supervisors: Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; host)

Research Interns

2022

Kefeng Huang, BSc student, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
Dates: 05/2022-09/2022
Next: UCL-CS (UYK), BSc student
Research Topic: myAGV: The world’s smallest 6-DOF compound robot
Supervisors: Francisco Vasconcelos (UCL-CS; primary), Dimitrios Kanoulas (UCL-CS; secondary), Eddie Edwards (UCL-CS; secondary)

2020

Jaydeep Godbole, BSc Student, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, Department of Electrical Engineering
Dates: 05/2020-08/2020
Next: USC-CS (UK), MSc student
Research Topic: Enable Mobile Manipulation in Simulation