Please introduce yourself briefly and describe your current role at DFKI
My name is Théo Vincent, I am a researcher at DFKI and a PhD student at TU Darmstadt under the supervision of Prof. Dr Jan Peters. Before joining DFKI in 2022, I graduated from a double degree program between École des Ponts ParisTech and ENS Paris-Saclay.
In which of the 29 research departments do you work at DFKI?
I am part of the Systems AI for Robot Learning (SAIROL) research department at DFKI Darmstadt. At SAIROL, we focus on fundamental research on machine learning for intelligent autonomous robotic systems.
What are you working on at the moment, or in other words, what are your plans for saving the world?
As humans, we are often faced with sequential decision-making problems, situations in which multiple decisions need to be made one after the other to solve a problem. For example, when controlling a robot, multiple commands are successively executed by the robot to achieve a task. Those commands are chosen by a human-designed algorithm. Therefore, my goal is to develop algorithms capable of solving those sequential decision-making problems with as few resources as possible.
What are your strengths and what has been your greatest success or favourite experience so far?
My strengths are dedication and motivation. I do not easily give up when attempts to solve a complex problem are not successful. The best experience I had so far was at the European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning 2023 in Brussels, where I had the opportunity to present my work and exchange with other researchers on different ways to solve sequential decision-making problems.
What do you enjoy most about your job at DFKI? What inspires and fascinates you?
At DFKI, I enjoy working with inspiring people. Striving for solutions to problems that can help make the world a better place is highly motivating. I appreciate that DFKI Darmstadt focuses on fundamental research as small improvements yield large benefits for practical applications.
If you weren't a scientist, what career would you have pursued?
Being an engineer by training, I would have probably worked as an engineer in a company aiming at mitigating the impact of humans on our planet. Limiting the negative effects of the agricultural sector on biodiversity and land usage while increasing the quality of the aliments has always been an interesting topic for me.
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