Jan Peters

Prof. Jan Peters serves as Full Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science, Technical University Darmstadt, and heads the Systems AI for Robot Learning department at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) since 2022. A globally recognized leader in machine learning for robotics, his work bridges theoretical AI and practical robotic systems.

His educational background includes:

• Diplom-Ingenieur in Electrical Engineering (TU München, 1996-2002)
• Diplom-Informatiker (Fern-Universität Hagen, 1996-2002)
• M.Sc. Computer Science (University of Southern California, 2001-2002)
• M.Sc. Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering (University of Southern California, 2004-2005)
• Ph.D. Computer Science (University of Southern California, 2007)

His research pioneers adaptive machine learning for autonomous robots, specializing in reinforcement learning frameworks and real-world robot skill acquisition. Current work focuses on closing the reality gap between simulation and physical deployment through novel learning architectures.

Recent publications (2025) reveal strong trends in adaptive reinforcement learning and vision-language model integration, featuring techniques like context-aware prompt learning and neural distillation for efficient policy transfer. These advances target scalable robot learning in unstructured environments.

Major recognitions include:

• IEEE Fellow (2019) and ELLIS Fellow (2020)
• ERC Starting Grant (2016-2021)
• Dick Volz Best Thesis Award (2011)
• INNS Young Investigator Award (2013)
• Amazon Research Award (2021)

As an advisor, he has mentored award-winning researchers including two Best European Robotics Ph.D. Thesis winners (Lutter, Kober) and finalists (Kroemer, Lioutikov). His research receives substantial funding from ERC, EU Horizon, and industry partnerships.

He leads the Systems AI for Robot Learning department at DFKI and co-founded ELLIS Robot Learning unit "Closing the Reality Gap," driving collaborative research across European institutions while directing hessian.AI's robotics initiatives.