Biography

I am an Assistant Professor of Robotics and Machine Learning in the Automation Technology and Mechanical Engineering Unit at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Tampere University, Finland.

I obtained my B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechatronics Engineering from Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2013, 2015 and 2019, respectively. Subsequently, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sabanci University as a member of the Control, Vision and Robotics (CVR) Research Group of Sabanci University which is led by Prof. Mustafa Unel. In 2020, I joined Aalto University, Finland, where I worked for four years as a postdoctoral researcher in the Intelligent Robotics Research Group led by Prof. Ville Kyrki.

My primary research interests are safe model predictive control, constrained optimal control theory, reinforcement learning, system identification, machine learning, and their applications to dynamical systems.

Latest News and Updates

[October 2024] New preprint “Constrained Trajectory Optimization for Hybrid Dynamical Systems” released!

[October 2024] Our paper “Learning Transparent Reward Models via Unsupervised Feature Selection” has been accepted for presentation at the Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2024) November 6-9, Munich, Germany!

[March 2024] New preprint “Automated Feature Selection for Inverse Reinforcement Learning ” released!

[February 2024] I start my new role as an Assistant Professor of Robotics and Machine Learning in the Automation Technology and Mechanical Engineering Unit at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Tampere University, Finland.

All News and Updates

Last week, @DavidBMulero successfully defended his PhD thesis on “Towards Efficient Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects by Learning Dynamics Models and Adaptive Policies“.

Big congrats! 🥳️👏️

Link to his dissertation: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/items/26ce42b3-b1ca-48d6-a03f-593c2003e107

Happy to receive the honorary mention in the @AaltoUniversity Open Science Award for our research done on Robotic Manipulation of deformable objects!
Thanks to my collaborators @trannguyenle95 @GokhanAlcan_ and @VKyrki !

Here the news article:

Interested in deformable objects, cloth manipulation or simulation engines?
We have evaluated the Sim-to-Real gap in @GoogleDeepMind MuJoCo, Bullet, @nvidia Flex and @SofaFramework SOFA on dynamic and quasi-static cloth manipulation!

Do you want to know more? Scroll down! 🧵

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Academic Positions

Education

  • 20192015

    Ph.D. in Mechatronics Engineering, Sabanci University

    Istanbul, Turkey | GPA: 3.67 / 4.00
    Ph.D. Thesis: Data Driven Nonlinear Dynamic Models for Predicting Heavy-Duty Diesel Engine Torque and Combustion Emissions

  • 20152013

    M.Sc. Mechatronics Engineering, Sabanci University

    Istanbul, Turkey | GPA: 4.00 / 4.00
    Master Thesis: Novel Vision Based Estimation Techniques for the Analysis of Cavitation Bubbles

  • 20132008

    B.Sc. Mechatronics Engineering, Sabanci University

    Istanbul, Turkey | GPA: 3.45 / 4.00

  • 20132008

    Math Minor Honor Program, Sabanci University

    Istanbul, Turkey | GPA: 3.67 / 4.00

Reviewer Invitations

Honors and Awards

  •    [2024] Fostering Open Science in the Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects, Third place award for Aalto University’s Open Science Award 2023.
  •    [2022] Nomination to a possible finalist for awards of Best Paper, Best Student Paper and Best RoboCup Paper in IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.
  •    [2022] Best Robotics Paper award at International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales, MARSS 2022.
  •    [2015 – 2019] Sabanci University Full Scholarship for Ph.D. Education
  •    [2016] Elginkan Foundation Technology Award
  •    [2013-2016] Research Scholarship from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) (Grant No: 113S092)
  •    [2012-2013] Sakip Sabanci Encouragement Scholarship for superior achievement

All models are wrong, but some models are useful. George Box