About

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in Space Robotics at the University of Luxembourg. I also did my PhD there, with the thesis Robot Learning Beyond Earth: Enabling Adaptive Autonomy in Space. I work on robot learning, reinforcement learning and simulation, so that robots can learn to act in the most extreme environments.

During my PhD, I was a visiting researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), working on scalable simulation and sim-to-real transfer for space robotics. Before my PhD, I earned a BSc and an MSc in Robotics at Aalborg University. I also worked as a Rust software engineer at Aivero, which started my passion for Rust and systems programming.

Journey

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SlovakiaHome country

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DenmarkBSc & MSc at AAU

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LuxembourgPhD at uni.lu

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USAVisiting researcher at JPL

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LuxembourgPostdoc at uni.lu

News

Jan 2026New chapter

Postdoc

Started as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Luxembourg, working on continual reinforcement learning for space robotics.

Dec 2025Milestone

PhD

Defended my PhD thesis, “Robot Learning Beyond Earth: Enabling Adaptive Autonomy in Space”, at the University of Luxembourg.

Dec 2025Presentation

iSpaRo 2025

Miguel Olivares-Mendez presented our paper “Sim2Dust: Mastering Dynamic Waypoint Tracking on Granular Media” at iSpaRo 2025.

Oct 2025Presentation

ASTRA 2025

Carol Martinez presented our paper “Learning Tool-Aware Adaptive Compliant Control for Autonomous Regolith Excavation” at ESA ASTRA 2025 in Leiden.

Oct 2025Research stay

NASA JPL

Started a visiting research stay at NASA JPL, working on scalable simulation, continual reinforcement learning and sim-to-real transfer.

Sep 2025Presentation

ISEB@IAC 2025

Gave the talk “Advancing Adaptive Autonomy Through Procedural Space Environments” at IAC 2025 in Sydney, supported by the ISEB@IAC travel grant from ESA Education.

Jun 2025Certification

IEEE CertifAIEd

Became an IEEE CertifAIEd™ Authorized Lead Assessor, certified to assess the ethics of autonomous and intelligent systems.

May 2025Presentation

ICRA 2025

Presented “Learning Compliant Manipulation in Space” and a live demo of Space Robotics Bench at ICRA 2025 in Atlanta.

Apr 2025Hackathon

Mistral AI

Built a vision-based robot system that stacks unstable objects at the Mistral AI robotics hackathon in Paris.

Dec 2024Challenge

AoC 2024

Solved every Advent of Code 2024 puzzle in Rust, my second year in a row.

Dec 2024Competition

Space ROS Sim

Won second place in the NASA Space ROS Sim Summer Sprint Challenge.

Nov 2024Presentation

CoRL 2024

Presented “Towards Benchmarking Robotic Manipulation in Space” at the MRM-D workshop of CoRL 2024 in Munich.

Oct 2024Networking

ROSCon 2024

Attended ROSCon 2024 in Odense and discussed Space ROS and simulation tools with the ROS community.

Sep 2024Demo

ICRA@40

Gave the live demo “Interactive Robotic Manipulation in Simulated Space Environments” at ICRA@40 in Rotterdam, the 40th anniversary of ICRA.

Jun 2024Presentation

iSpaRo 2024

Presented “Leveraging Procedural Generation for Learning Autonomous Peg-in-Hole Assembly in Space” at iSpaRo 2024 in Luxembourg.

Mar 2024Presentation

BMSC 2024

Presented “Learning Robotic Peg-in-Hole Assembly for In-Space Operations with Model-Based Deep Reinforcement Learning” at the 43rd Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control in Blankenberge, Belgium.

Dec 2023Challenge

AoC 2023

Solved every Advent of Code 2023 puzzle in Rust, my first year.

Dec 2023Competition

NeurIPS 2023

Won second place in the Robot Air Hockey Challenge at NeurIPS 2023 with a model-based deep reinforcement learning approach.

Jun 2023Competition

ICRA 2023

Co-taught a ROS 2 and Gazebo tutorial and reached the quarterfinals of the Simulated Humanoid Robot Wrestling Competition at ICRA 2023 in London.

Oct 2022Presentation

IROS 2022

Presented my first paper, “Learning to Grasp on the Moon from 3D Octree Observations with Deep Reinforcement Learning”, at IROS 2022 in Kyoto.

Oct 2022Presentation

ROSCon 2022

Presented how to generate datasets of procedural SDF models with Blender at ROSCon 2022 in Kyoto.

Sep 2022Experience

Teaching

Started teaching the robot arm labs of Robotic Manipulation in Space, in the Master in Space Technologies and Business (then the Interdisciplinary Space Master) at the University of Luxembourg.

Oct 2021New chapter

Start of PhD

Started my PhD on robot learning for space at the University of Luxembourg.

Jun 2021Milestone

MSc

Graduated with an MSc in Robotics from Aalborg University, with the thesis “Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotic Grasping from Octrees”.

Jun 2019Milestone

BSc

Graduated with a BSc in Robotics from Aalborg University, with the thesis “Eye Controlled Semi-Autonomous Assistive Manipulator”: a robot arm controlled by eye tracking.

Jun 2019Experience

Aivero

Joined Aivero as a Rust software engineer, building 3D vision pipelines and real-time video compression.