CV
Education
- PhD in Aerospace Science & Engineering, University of Toronto, since 2020 (expected 2026)
- Supervised by Prof. Angela Schoellig
- Thesis: Control Barrier Function Safety Filter for Robotics: From Theoretical Guarantees to Safe Actions in Perceived Environments
- Researcher at Technical University of Munich since 2022 (advisor relocated)
- M.Sc. in Mechatronics: Intelligent Systems and Robotics, Hamburg University of Technology, 2015 - 2018
- Thesis: Learning Model Predictive Control for Competitive Autonomous Racing (supervised by Prof. Francesco Borrelli at UC Berkeley)
- Study Abroad: University of California, Berkeley, Fall 2015
- Study Abroad: National University of Singapore, Spring 2016
- B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering: Mechatronics, Hamburg University of Technology, 2012 - 2015
- Thesis: Identification and Modeling of Backlash in Robot Transmissions
Work experience
- University of Toronto & Technical University of Munich, since 2020
- Supervised by Prof. Angela Schoellig
- Developing embodied chain-of-thought reasoning for safe robot foundation models; secured 120k GPU hours across three EuroHPC compute grants
- Integrated vision-language models with safety filters to enforce semantic constraints (e.g., spill avoidance, unsafe tool handling) – one of the first systems to move beyond geometric collision avoidance for manipulation
- Developed a real-time CBF-based safety filter for whole-body collision avoidance on a robot manipulator using onboard perception
- Closed a key gap between continuous-time CBF theory and discrete-time implementation for safe deployment on real robots
- Helped establish a new robotics lab at TU Munich: robot hardware, sensors, compute infrastructure, international exchange programs, and planning of a new robotics hall
- Waabi, Toronto, Summer 2022
- Supervised by Prof. Raquel Urtasun
- Designed and implemented vehicle dynamics models for tractor-trailer systems for autonomous trucking
- Developed model-based control methods integrated into the motion planner
- Volkswagen Group of America, Belmont, CA, 2019 - 2020
- Built a real-time road condition classification system from onboard front-camera imagery
- Developed perturbation-based explainability methods for validating neural network predictions in safety-critical perception
- Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Winter 2018
- Supervised by Prof. Ludovic Righetti
- Generated dynamically feasible whole-body motions for a quadruped robot using centroidal momentum dynamics optimization
- Check out their Open Dynamic Robot Initiative
- University of California, Berkeley, 2017 - 2018
- Supervised by Prof. Francesco Borrelli
- Developed an iterative learning MPC controller for multi-agent autonomous car racing on a miniature race car
- Designed strategies for safe set selection and risk-aware overtaking maneuvers
- Check out their BARC Project
- Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg, 2016 - 2017
- Trained a CNN mapping multi-camera inputs to steering angles for autonomous lane keeping
- Built a dynamic Bayesian network for lane change prediction from highway driving data
