I am a 25-year-old Data Science and Artificial Intelligence PhD student from Germany working on Multi-Agent Reinforcement learning at the Autonomous Agents Research Group.
My research focuses on the challenges of generalisation and sample efficiency: how can multiple agents learn effective behaviour with less data and be able to learn robust, re-usable skills which transfer to new environments.
Feb 10, 2022
📃 My submission on Task Generalisation in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning has been accepted in the Doctoral Consortium of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) 2022!
Dec 19, 2021
📃 Our work, Decoupled Reinforcement Learning to Stabilise Intrinsically-Motivated Exploration, has been accepted at International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) 2022!
Aug 29, 2021
🤖 Just published a big redesign of my webpage based on GoHugo!
Jul 30, 2021
📃 Our work, Benchmarking Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithms in Cooperative Tasks, has been accepted at the Datasets and Benchmarks track of the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference (NeurIPS) 2021!
Jul 20, 2021
📃 Our work, Decoupling Exploration and Exploitation in Reinforcement Learning, has been accepted at the Unsupervised RL (URL) workshop in the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) 2021!
March 19, 2021
📝 I wrote a blog post providing an overview of a range of multi-agent learning environments.
Sep 27, 2020
📃 Our work, Shared Experience Actor-Critic or Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning, has been accepted at the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference (NeurIPS) 2020!
June 25, 2020
📝 I wrote a blog post about the UK Multi-Agent Systems Symposium at the Alan Turing Institute in London.
Doctoral Consortium Lukas Schäfer (2022)Doctoral Consortium at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), 2022 |
Lukas Schäfer, Filippos Christianos, Josiah P. Hanna, Stefano V. Albrecht (2022)International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), 2022 |
Conference - Poster Georgios Papoudakis, Filippos Christianos, Lukas Schäfer, Stefano V. Albrecht (2021)Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2021 - Datasets and Benchmarks track |
Workshop - Poster Lukas Schäfer, Filippos Christianos, Josiah P. Hanna, Stefano V. Albrecht (2021)Unsupervised Reinforcement Learning (URL) Workshop in the International Conference on Machine Learning, 2021 |
Rujie Zhong, Josiah P. Hanna, Lukas Schäfer, Stefano V. Albrecht (2021)Workshop on Offline Reinforcement Learning in the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, 2021 |
Work in Progress Trevor McInroe, Lukas Schäfer, Stefano V. Albrecht (2021)arXiv |
Dematic is global player focused on design and implementation of automated system solutions for warehouses, distribution centres and production facilities.
Sep 2018 - Aug 2020, Edinburgh
HYPED is a team of students at the University of Edinburgh dedicated to developing the Hyperloop concept and inspiring future generations about engineering. HYPED has received awards from SpaceX, Virgin Hyperloop One and Institution of Civil Engineers.
Sep 2019 - Aug 2020
Sep 2018 - Aug 2019
 University of EdinburghPh.D in Data Science and Artificial IntelligenceProject: Sample Efficiency and Generalisation in Multi-Agent Reinforcement LearningSupervisors: Stefano V. Albrecht (primary) and Amos Storkey (secondary)Funding: Principal's Career Development Scholarship from the University of EdinburghKey Areas: Reinforcement Learning, Multi-Agent Systems, Generalisation, Exploration, Intrinsic Rewards2019-Present | ||||||||
University of EdinburghM.Sc. in InformaticsCGPA: 77.28%Funding: DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) graduate scholarship & Stevenson Exchange ScholarshipTaken Courses
Extracurricular Activities
2018-2019 | ||||||||
 Saarland UniversityB.Sc. in InformaticsGPA: 3.7Taken Courses
Extracurricular Activities
2015-2018 | ||||||||
 WarndtgymnasiumHigher Secondary School CertificateGPA: 4.0Awards:
2008-2015 |
Oct 2019 - Present, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Teaching assistant, demonstrator and marker for the Reinforcement Learning lecture at the University of Einburgh under Dr. Stefano V. Albrecht
Feb 2021 - Aug 2021, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Co-supervised final Masters students’ projects at the University of Einburgh
Sep 2017 - Oct 2017, Mathematics Preparation Course, Saarland University
Voluntary lecturer and coach for the mathematics preparation course preparing upcoming computer science undergraduate students for their studies
Oct 2016 - Mar 2017, Dependable Systems and Software Chair, Saarland University
Tutor for the Programming 1 lecture about functional programming at the Dependable Systems and Software Group chair of Saarland University under Prof. Dr. Holger Hermanns
In my MSc thesis project I researched the application of curiosity-inspired intrinsic exploration bonuses for multi-agent reinforcement learning. Count- and prediction-based curiosities were evaluated in combination with value-based and policy-gradient MARL methods, all implemented in PyTorch.
In my BSc thesis project I modified and implemented the neural network architecture of [https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.04271](Action Schema Networks) for application in classical, deterministic planning and extensively evaluated the network’s suitability for this type of automated planning.
Software project as part of Reinforcement Learning lecture developing several classical and deep RL algorithms. Implemented algorithms include dynamic programming algorithms value iteration and policy iteration and tabular RL SARSA, Q-Learning, and Monte Carlo control. Lastly, deep RL methods of asynchronous DQN and tabular multi-agent RL algorithms were implemented and evaluated in the Half field offense (HFO) 2D football environment.
Group project as part of Robotics Science and Systems lecture with design, construction of a four-wheel differential steering mobile robot and development of an autonomous localisation system based on particle-filtering using sonar and IR sensors. The robot was constructed using a LEGO framework, a Raspberry Pi computer, sensors and actuators. The robot was tasked to navigate through a pre-defined environment without contact to obstacles and act on detection of variable points of interest using light sensors before returning back to its deployment location.
Group project as part of Automated Planning lecture implementing several heuristics, search algorithms and pruning techniques in the Fast-Downward planning system for automated planning.
Group project as part of Software Engineering lecture going through all stages of software engineering from requirement gathering over planning and designing the architecture up to implementing and properly testing our prototype.
Group project as part of Natural Computing lecture developing and critiquing the Galaxy-based Search Algorithm (GbSA) in comparison to Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) for PCA approximation.
Group project as part of Modern Imperative Programming Languages lecture implementing the Conflict-Driven Clause Learning (CDCL) SAT-Solver using Rust.
In this extensive summer group project, we implemented an entire fictional turn-based strategy game in which various different computer- and player-controller characters can move on a hexagonal-map and attack other characters. The entire game-logic, game-server connection and a GUI for players were implemented throughout all stages of software engineering including architecture, creating multiple prototype visualizations and diagrams, implementing and testing our software.
For most projects, I am unable to provide access to code repositories. However, I would gladly discuss more details regarding the projects wherever possible. If you would like further information or have any general questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch!
Conference International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), 2022 |
Conference Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2021 |
Workshop Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2020 |
