BIOGRAPHY

Fares J. Abu-Dakka received a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Birzeit University, Palestine (2003), and advanced degrees (DEA and Ph.D.) in robotics motion planning from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), Spain (2006, 2011), in addition to M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from UPV (2015). His postdoctoral journey began at the Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia, in 2012. From 2013 to 2016, he was a Visiting Professor at Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, followed by a postdoctoral role at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) from 2016 to 2019. He was a Research Fellow at Aalto University (2019-2022) before joining the Technical University of Munich as a Senior Scientist in 2022, where he led the Robot Learning group at MIRMI. Currently, he is a Lecturer and Researcher at Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Spain. His research spans control theory, differential geometry, and machine learning, with a focus on improving robot manipulation performance and safety. He also serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) and IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO).


In 2012 he started his first postdoc at Jozef Stefan Institute, Slovenia. Between 2013 and 2016 he held a visiting professorship at the Department of Systems Engineering and Automation at the Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain. From 2016 to 2019, he was a Postdoc at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT). From 2019 to 2022, he was a Research Fellow at Intelligent Robotics Group, Aalto University. Then in 2022, he moved to the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), Technische Universität München, Germany, to serve as a Senior Scientist and leader of the Robot Learning group. Currently, he is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Faculty of Engineering, Mondragon University, Spain.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research lies in the intersection of control theory, differential geometry, and machine learning, in order to enhance robot manipulation performance and safety.

EDUCATION

2011 -- Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering – Robotics from UPV.

2015 -- M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from UPV.

2006 -- DEA in Mechanical Engineering – Robotics from UPV.

2003 -- B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Birzeit University

INVITED TALKS

Feb 2019 Systems Engineering and Automation, Carlos III University of Madrid. Title of the talk: Learning geometry-based manipulation skills.

Mar 2018 Systems Engineering and Automation, Carlos III University of Madrid. Title of the talk: Force-based variable impedance learning.

May 2013 Ales Ude, Bojan Nemec, Andrej Gams, and Fares Abu-Dakka. ICRA Workshop on Semantics, Identification and Control of Robot-Human-Environment Interaction. Karslruhe, Germany. Title of the talk: Programming by demonstration for learning and modulation of force-controlled behaviors.

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