Dr Sylvain Calinon,
Idiap Research Institute,
Centre du Parc, Rue Marconi 19,
CH-1920 Martigny, Switzerland

+41 27 721 77 61
sylvain.calinonidiap.ch

Born in 1980 at Yverdon, Switzerland.
Marital status: Single.   Citizenships: Swiss and French.

Short bio

I am a Senior Research Scientist at the Idiap Research Institute, with research interests covering robot learning, human-robot collaboration, optimal control and model-based optimization. I am also a Lecturer at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

From 2009 to 2014, I was a Team Leader at the Department of Advanced Robotics, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). From 2007 to 2009, I was a Postdoc at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory, EPFL. I hold a PhD from EPFL (2007), awarded by the Robotdalen Scientific Award, ABB Award and EPFL-Press Distinction. Other recognitions include Best Paper Award in the journal of Intelligent Service Robotics (ISR, 2017), Best Paper Award at IEEE Ro-Man'2007, Best Poster Award at ICRA'2021 Workshop, Best Presentation Award at CoRL'2019, and Best Paper Award Finalist at IEEE-RAS Humanoids'2009, IEEE/RSJ IROS'2013, ICIRA'2015 and IEEE ICRA'2016. I served as Associate Editor in IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) and IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), and I currently serve as TC Chair on Model-based optimization for robotics for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS).

The collaborative projects I am or have been involved in include SMART-DISPENSING, INTELLIMAN, SESTOSENSO, SWITCH, CODIMAN, COB'HOOK, LEARN-REAL, HEAP, NATAI, COLLABORATE, MEMMO, ROSALIS, DEXROV, I-DRESS, TACT-HAND, PLATFORM-MMD, STIFF-FLOP, PANDORA, SMART-E, SAPHARI, AMARSI, ROBOT@CWE, FEELIX GROWING and COGNIRON, supported by the European Commission, by the Swiss National Science Foundation, by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, and by the Swiss Innovation Agency.

You can download my research statement as a PDF file.

Research Experience

Jan 2018-curr.
Senior Research Scientist
Head of the Robot Learning and Interaction Group, Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland.
2014-curr.
Lecturer
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL).
2014-2017
Research Scientist
Head of the Robot Learning and Interaction Group, Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland.
2014-2018
External Collaborator
Department of Advanced Robotics (Prof. Darwin Caldwell), Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova, Italy.
2009-2014
Team Leader
Head of the Learning and Interaction Lab, Department of Advanced Robotics, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genova, Italy.
2007-2009
Postdoctoral Researcher
Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (Prof. Aude Billard), Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
Mar 2008
Visiting Researcher
CNRS-AIST Joint Japanese-French Robotics Laboratory (JRL) (Prof. Abderrahmane Kheddar), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan.
Apr 2005
Visiting Researcher
Adaptive Systems Research Group (Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn and Prof. Chrystopher Nehaniv), University of Hertfordshire (UH), Hatfield, UK.
Sep 2003
Visiting Researcher
Humanoid Robotics and Computational Neuroscience department (HRCN) (Prof. Gordon Cheng), Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute (ATR), Kyoto, Japan.
Oct 2002
Visiting Researcher
Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab (CLMC) (Prof. Stefan Schaal), University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, USA.

Education

2003-2007
PhD Robotics
Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Thesis: 'Continuous Extraction of Task Constraints in a Robot Programming by Demonstration Framework'
Advisor:
Prof. Aude Billard, EPFL, Switzerland.
Committee:
Prof. Hannes Bleuler, EPFL, Switzerland,
Prof. Hervé Bourlard, Director of Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland,
Dr Yiannis Demiris, Imperial College London (ICL), UK,
Prof. Stefan Schaal, University of Southern California (USC), USA.
Awards:
Robotdalen Scientific Award,   ABB Award,   EPFL-Press distinction.
Defense:
May 1st, 2007. Public presentation: July 6th, 2007.
2001-2003
MSc Microeng.
Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL), EPFL, Switzerland. Thesis: 'PDA Interface for Humanoid Robots using Speech and Vision Processing'
Advisor:
Prof. Aude Billard, EPFL, Switzerland.
Committee:
Prof. Jean-Daniel Nicoud, DIDEL S.A.
Defense:
March 1st, 2003.
1998-2001
BSc Microeng.
EPFL, Switzerland.

Awards

Personal prizes

2017
Best Paper Award, Intelligent Service Robotics (ISR) journal for the article "A Tutorial on Task-Parameterized Movement Learning and Retrieval".
2013
Excellence in Reviewing, Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Elsevier).
  In recognition of an outstanding contribution to the quality of the journal
2013
Best Paper Award Finalist, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'2013). Paper "On improving the extrapolation capability of task-parameterized movement models".
2009
Best Paper Award Finalist, IEEE-RAS Intl Conf. on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids'2009).Paper "Handling of multiple constraints and motion alternatives in a robot programming by demonstration framework".
2008
Robotdalen Scientific Award for Best 2007 PhD Thesis.
  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.
2008
ABB Award for Best 2007 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.
2008
EPFL-Press distinction for Best 2007 PhD Thesis.
2007
Best Paper Award of the IEEE Intl Symp. on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN'2007). Paper on "Active Teaching in Robot Programming by Demonstration".

Group prizes

2022
12 Stars of Europe Award by the French Research Minister for the H2020 MEMMO European project coordinated by LAAS.
2022
ICC Award, International Create Challenge, with Gennady Plyushchev and Daniel Berio.
2022
IEEE RAS TC Award, IEEE RAS Most Active Technical Committee Award with Adrien Escande, Yue Hu, and Patrick Wensing.
2009
PROSE Awards as co-author of a chapter in the Handbook of Robotics (Springer) distinguished by two PROSE Awards.
2008
First prize in the Grand Challenge on Human-Robot Interaction at the IEEE Intl Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA'2008), LASA-EPFL Team.

Prizes awarded to my students

2022
Best Student Award, Teguh Lembono, Idiap Award.
2021
Best Paper Award, Suhan Shetty, Idiap Award.
2021
Best Poster Award, ICRA workshop "Towards Curious Robots: Modern Approaches for Intrinsically-Motivated Intelligent Behavior", for the paper "Intrinsically-Motivated Robot Learning of Bayesian Probabilistic Movement Primitives" presented by Thibaut Kulak.
2019
Best Presentation Award, Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL'2019), for the paper "Bayesian Optimization Meets Riemannian Manifolds in Robot Learning" presented by Noémie Jaquier.
2019
Best Student Award, Noémie Jaquier, Idiap Award.
2016
Best Paper Award Finalist, IEEE Intl Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Paper on "Learning Robot Manipulation Tasks with Task-Parameterized Semi-Tied Hidden Semi-Markov Model".
2015
Best Paper Award Finalist, Intl Conf. on Intelligent Robotics and Applications (ICIRA). Paper on "Learning the stiffness of a continuous soft manipulator from multiple demonstrations".

Bibliometry

h-index: 51,   12'000+ citations*.

The complete list of my publications can be found in the publications section.

Publications highlights