
Giacomo Spigler
I am Assistant Professor at the Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence of Tilburg University, where I work on various topics in Deep Learning and Deep Reinforcement Learning.
I am interested in artificial (general) intelligence and in building intelligent artificial life. In particular, I am interested in deep reinforcement learning for robotics, meta-learning, and innate evolutionary priors.
Current Position:
- (January 2022 - current) Tenured Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence of Tilburg University.
Co-director of the AI for Robotics Lab (AIR-Lab) and of the MindLabs Robotics & Avatars Lab.
- (June 2019 - December 2021) Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence of Tilburg University.
- (2019 - current) Research fellow at Siks.
- (2019 - current) Mentor at LeadTheFuture, italian network of excellence in STEM fields.
Education:
- Ph.D. at the Department of Psychology (Computational Neuroscience), The University of Sheffield, with a Biohybrid Network full Scolarship, 2018. Supervisor: Dr. S.P. Wilson. Dissertation title "How can plasticity of lateral interactions affect cortical representation?" PDF
- M.Sc. (Distinction) Cognitive Science (Computational Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics), The University of Edinburgh, 2014 (Informatics UK/EU Master's Scolarship). Supervisor: Prof. J. Bednar. Dissertation title: "Neural modelling of the McCollough Effect in color vision." PDF
- March - April 2012 : research internship @ CBCL, MIT.
- B.Sc. Computer Engineering, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, 100/100 magna cum laude, 2012.
- B.Sc. Computer Engineering, University of Pisa, 110/110 magna cum laude, Dec 2012. Dissertation title: "A WTA Competitive Learning Algorithm For The Development of Cortical Receptive Fields." PDF
Previous Positions:
- October 2017 - May 2019. Postdoctoral Researcher at the BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa. Development and validation of neuromorphic bionic systems. Supervisor: Dr. Calogero Oddo.
- Freelance Consultant in Machine Learning and Software Development (HackHands), since April 2017.
- Event Manager at 196 International, September-December 2016.
- Participation in the NanoBioTouch (EU-FP7-NMP-228844) and HandBot (PRIN 2010/2011) research
projects
- Kiwi s.r.l. - Co-Founder and C.T.O. (high-tech startup, raised ~ Euro 300.000 in seed funding)
Invited Talks:
- Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence for Bioinformatics, Healthcare, and Protein Folding, 1st Synthetic Biology Conference (SynBio) in Nicosia, Cyprus, organized by the University of Nicosia, the Institute of Neurology and Genetics, the European University and the University of Cyprus. March 2019.