Stefano Nichele, Professor profile picture

Stefano Nichele

Professor
Østfold University College
Machine Learning research group

Email: stefano [DOT] nichele [AT] hiof [DOT] no
Address: B R A Veien 4, 1783 Halden, Norway
Office nr.: D1-039
Postal: P.O. Box 700, NO-1757 Halden

Professor II
Oslo Metropolitan University



My research is in Artificial Life (ALife).
I'm interested in understanding the living world at the most fundamental level.

This leads me to ask questions such as:
  • how did life and intelligence evolve in the universe?
  • what is the relation between life and intelligence?
My long-term goals are:
  • understand how life (and intelligence) can emerge in machines as it does in biological organisms;
  • create machines that are more adaptive, alive, and generally intelligent.
To achieve such goals, I investigate:
  • evolution of genetic representations for intelligent and living machines;
  • self-organization and development of robot brains and bodies;
  • global coordination and learning through local interactions;
  • emergence of complexity from simple rules and open-endedness.

Keywords

  • Artificial Life, Complex Systems, Evolutionary and Developmental Systems, Cellular Automata
  • Bio-inspired and Unconventional Computing, Computational Neuroscience, AGI


Short CV

  • 2022 - ongoing: Professor, Østfold University College, Halden, Norway
  • 2022 - ongoing: Professor II, OsloMet, Oslo, Norway
  • 2023 : Visiting Professor (6 months), University of Bologna, Cesena, Italy
  • 2021 - 2022: Professor, OsloMet, Oslo, Norway
  • 2020 - 2022: Adjunct Research Scientist, Simula Metropolitan, Oslo, Norway
  • 2017 - 2021: Associate Professor, OsloMet, Oslo, Norway
  • 2014 - 2017: Researcher, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
  • 2016: Visiting Researcher at Robotics, Evolution and Art Lab, ITU, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 2010 - 2014: PhD in Computer Science, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
  • 2009: MSc in Computer Science, Univerity of Insubria, Varese, Italy


Awards

  • 2024: Distinguished Early-Career Investigator Award by the International Society for Artificial Life
  • 2024: Best oral presentation award at NORA annual conference 2024
  • 2022: Best paper award at ICML (International Conference on Machine Learning) workshop "Collective Learning Across Scales"
  • 2021: IEEE Brain Award runner-up at IEEE SSCI 2021
  • 2019: Young Research Talent Award by the Norwegian Research Council (NFR)
  • 2017: Best poster award at ECAL 2017
  • 2015: Publication Prize at the Dept. of Computer and Information Science at NTNU, Norway
  • 2015: Best paper award at Future Computing 2015


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