Sylvain Calinon

Sylvain Calinon is a Senior Research Scientist at the Idiap Research Institute and a Lecturer at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He specializes in robot learning, human-robot collaboration, and optimal control. He holds a PhD from EPFL (2007) and has led research teams at IIT (2009–2014) and Idiap (2014–present). His work focuses on enabling robots to learn skills from demonstrations and interactions, emphasizing geometric and model-based approaches.

• Affiliations: Idiap Research Institute (Senior Scientist), EPFL (Lecturer in Microengineering)
• Research Interests: Robot learning, manipulation planning, optimal control, human-robot interaction, and industrial applications.

Calinon's research has been supported by grants from the European Commission, Swiss National Science Foundation, and others. He has received multiple awards, including the ABB Award and Best Paper Awards at ICRA, IROS, and RSS. He has advised over 20 PhD students and contributes to editorial roles in top journals like IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

His current projects include the H2020 MEMMO (memory of motion) and COLLABORATE (human-robot co-production systems). He also leads initiatives in geriatronics and industrial cobotics, emphasizing real-world applications.