معرفی
Manfred Eppe serves as Chief Engineer at the Institute for Data Science Foundations, Hamburg University of Technology, where he leads the cognitive robotics laboratory and contributes to teaching the machine learning lecture. His research centers on computational cognitive models of representation learning and reinforcement learning for simulated and physical robotic agents, with applications spanning neuro-semantic systems and cognitive robotics.
His educational background includes a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Bremen (2014), followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Hamburg (2016-2021), UC Berkeley (2015), and IIIA-CSIC in Barcelona (2015) within the COINVENT project. These positions focused on data-driven neuro-semantic systems, human-robot interaction using neurocognitive methods, and AI-based concept representation.
Eppe's research integrates reinforcement learning with cognitive modeling to develop agents capable of representation learning, concept blending, and commonsense reasoning. His work bridges symbolic AI and neural approaches, emphasizing neurocognitively inspired methods for natural language understanding and robotic applications in physical environments.
He has secured over €1.5 million in research funding as principal investigator for DFG projects MoReSpace and LeCAREbot, alongside prior grants from Volkswagen Stiftung and DAAD. His teaching portfolio includes Data Science at West Coast University of Applied Sciences and the "From Data to Knowledge" course at Universität Hamburg, with thesis supervision limited to reinforcement learning topics using the Scilab-RL virtual robotics platform.
Eppe directs the cognitive robotics laboratory, which develops the Scilab-RL framework for simulating robotic agents and testing learning algorithms. The lab emphasizes open collaboration and practical applications of computational cognitive models in real-world robotic systems.
