Iman Nematollahi

Postdoc in Robot Learning

University of Freiburg

Biography

I’m a PostDoc at the University of Freiburg with Prof. Dr. Abhinav Valada, and completed my PhD here under Prof. Dr. Wolfram Burgard. My research focuses on robot manipulation and deep learning to enable robots to develop an intuitive understanding of physics in the form of a world model, learned from past unlabeled interactions. This model allows robots to comprehend the 3D dynamics of their environment, predict plausible future outcomes, and acquire a diverse repertoire of adaptive and generalizable skills.

Progress

World Models: Hind4sight (2020), T3VIP (2022), LUMOS (2025)
Robot Skills: Ext-GMM (2019), SAC-GMM (2022), KIS-GMM (2023), BOpt-GMM (2024)

Interests

Robot Learning
World Models
Reinforcement Learning

Education

Postdoc in Robot Learning, 2025
University of Freiburg
PhD in Robot Learning, 2024
University of Freiburg
MSc in Embedded Systems, 2018
University of Freiburg

Recent Work

World Models

RGB-D Video Prediction (T3VIP)	Learning Structured Dynamics Models (Hind4sight)
Robot Skill Mastery within World Models (LUMOS)

Robot Skills

Sample-Efficient Refinement of Robot Skills (BOpt-GMM)	Robot Skill Generalization to Unseen Environments (KIS-GMM)
Refining Real-World Robot Skills in the Trajectory Space (SAC-GMM)	Augmenting Robot Skills by Non-Geometric Features (Ext-GMM)

Experience

PostDoc

University of Freiburg - Robot Learning Lab (RL)

Apr 2025 – Present Germany

Advisor: Prof. Abhinav Valada

Robotics Research Intern

University of Oxford - Applied Artificial Intelligence Lab (A2I)

Jan 2024 – Jun 2024 United Kingdom

Advisor: Prof. Ingmar Posner

Ph.D Candidate in Computer Science

University of Oxford - Autonomous Intelligent Systems Lab (AIS

Jan 2019 – Dec 2024 Germany

Advisor: Prof. Wolfram Burgard

Student Research Assistant

Autonomous Intelligent Systems Lab

Aug 2017 – Oct 2017 Germany

Implementation of Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance for KUKA OmniRob

Student Research Assistant

IMTEK - Laboratory for the Design of Microsystems

Nov 2016 – Oct 2018 Germany

Low power hardware implementation of an Early Seizure Detection Convolutional Neural Network algorithm on FPGA
Continuous and simultaneous readout of ADC channels using SPI and USB protocols via FPGA

Electrical Engineer

Mahya Intelligent Transportation Systems

Sep 2012 – Sep 2014 Iran

As a member of Electrical team, I was trained to design, implement and maintain software and hardware requirements of Tehran traffic control devices.

Student Research Assistant

Shahid Beheshti University - Microprocessors Lab

Mar 2014 – Jun 2014 Iran

Design and Implementation of a novel Class Attendance System using AVR Microcontrollers and RFID Modules (used in the 22nd Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering).