Curriculum Vitae - CV

Updated 02/05/2012

  Dr Sylvain Calinon,
  Department of Advanced Robotics,
  Italian Institute of Technology (IIT),
  Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy.

Born January 12, 1980, Yverdon, Switzerland.
Swiss and French citizen. Single.

  (Office) +39 010 717 81 755
  (Mobile Switzerland) +41 76 368 16 64
  (Mobile Italy) +39 333 611 03 74
  sylvain.calinoniit.it

Team leader of the Learning and Interaction Group at the Department of Advanced Robotics leaded by Prof. Darwin Caldwell, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova, Italy.

Postdoctoral fellow at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA) leaded by Prof. Aude Billard, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Switzerland.

Visiting research fellow at the CNRS-AIST Joint Japanese-French Robotics Laboratory (JRL) leaded by Prof. Abderrahmane Kheddar, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan (1 month).

Visiting research fellow at the Adaptive Systems Research Group leaded by Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn and Prof. Chrystopher Nehaniv, University of Hertfordshire (UH), Hatfield, UK (2 weeks).

Visiting research fellow at the Humanoid Robotics and Computational Neuroscience department (HRCN) leaded by Prof. Gordon Cheng, Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute (ATR), Kyoto, Japan (1 month).

Visiting research fellow at the Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab (CLMC) leaded by Prof. Stefan Schaal, University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, USA (1 month).

PhD in robot programming by demonstration at the LASA Laboratory, EPFL.
"Continuous Extraction of Task Constraints in a Robot Programming by Demonstration Framework"

MSc in Microengineering, specialization in robotics, EPFL, Switzerland. MSc thesis on human-robot interfaces at the Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL), EPFL.
"PDA Interface for Humanoid Robots using Speech and Vision Processing"

BSc in Microengineering. EPFL, Switzerland.

Best paper award finalist of the IEEE-RAS Intl Conf. on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids), Paris, France.

Robotdalen Scientific Award for best PhD thesis (See the press release here).

The jury was impressed by the practical and economic importance of the problem, the systematic analysis and innovative layered approach of its implementation, the completeness of the solution, and the open release of source code, demonstrating confidence in the solution independence from specifics of any particular robot hardware or manipulation task.

ABB Award for best PhD thesis.

For the thorough and exemplary work in his Ph.D. thesis and important scientific contributions resolving two major issues in robot programming by demonstration.

EPFL-Press distinction for PhD Thesis.

First prize for the LASA Team in the Grand Challenge on Human-Robot Interaction at the Intl Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'2008).

Best paper award of the IEEE Intl Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Jeju, Korea. Paper on "Active Teaching in Robot Programming by Demonstration".

Guest lecturer for Applied Machine Learning course, class on Hidden Markov Models for graduate students in Microengineering, EPFL (class of 2 hours, 2007 and 2008).

Supervision of Applied Machine Learning lab for graduate students in Microengineering, EPFL, 2006.

Supervision of practical work on human-robot interfaces and image processing during one semester, robotics class of 3 hours per week for graduate students in Microengineering, EPFL, 2004.

Supervision of a half-day workshop on human-robot interfaces for humanoid robots and industrial robots during the international Winter School on Human Robot Interaction (CWSHRI) organized by the COGNIRON European integrated project, Lausanne, Switzerland, January 21-25, 2008.

Supervision of a half-day workshop on human-robot interfaces and vision processing for the international Summer School on Human-Robot Interaction organized by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the Intl Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR), Volterra, Italy, July 19-23, 2004.

External expert for the exam of the Autonomous Robots course for PhD students, 2007.

French (native),   English (fluent),   German (good knowledge).

WAM (Barrett Technology Inc.),   Kuka/DLR Lightweight Arm,   iCub humanoid robot,   HOAP-2, HOAP-3 (Fujitsu),   Katana (Neuronics),   DB (Sarcos),   HRP-2 (Kawada Ind., General Robotix),   Robota (Didel).

Linux and Windows OS, C/C++, Matlab/Octave, Java, Assembler, PHP, MySQL, OpenGL, CUDA.