PhD Student Position in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning and Planning

at  Aalto University

The Robot Learning research group is seeking a talented PhD student with strong interest in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning and Planning.
The Aalto Robot Learning research group operates in the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics. We focus on developing methods for reinforcement learning, robotic manipulation, decision making under partial observability, imitation learning, and decision making in multi-agent systems. The goal of the research group is to help robots understand what they need to learn to perform their assigned tasks, and, thus, make robots capable of operating on their own and pro-actively help humans. To accomplish these goals the research group develops novel decision-making methods and uses these methods to solve unsolved robotic tasks. For more information, please see
https://rl.aalto.fi
.
The main task of the PhD student will be to develop new machine learning methods for optimizing multi-agent behavior. The developed methods may be based on one of our focus areas including, but not limited to, reinforcement learning and planning under uncertainty. Example research topics include but are not limited to multi-agent curriculum learning, model-based multi-agent reinforcement learning, and multi-agent planning and control. The developed methods may be evaluated with real robots. The exact direction of the research is chosen depending on your experience and interests. Please relate clearly to some of the research topics in your Letter of Motivation.
Researchers from the areas of Machine Learning, AI, Robotics, and related areas including Reinforcement Learning, Control Engineering, Computer Vision, Statistics & Optimization, or Mathematics & Physics are welcome to apply. The candidate is expected to conduct independent research and at the same time contribute to the topics listed above. Successful candidates will be furthermore given the opportunity to work with undergraduate and M.Sc. students.
The research group collaborates internationally and nationally with research groups in construction, computer vision, robotics, mobile heavy machines, human-robot interaction, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, multi-agent systems, under-water vehicles, and robot motion planning. There will be ample opportunities for international collaboration.
The selected candidate will need to apply for the study right in doctoral studies at Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering. Thus, please check the student information and admission criteria from our
website
. In particular, please pay attention to the required (English) language proficiency.

• A letter of motivation describing your research interests and how the research fits to the Robot Learning research group (max. 1 page)
• Curriculum vitae (including the contact details of two referees)
• A list of publications as a part of the curriculum vitae
• PDF copy of your MSc and BSc degree certificates, including transcripts of all MSc and BSc university records (grades and courses) and their English translations (Finnish and Swedish certificates are also accepted