I am a Group Leader at the L3S Research Center at the Leibniz Universität Hannover (Hannover, Germany).

I received a degree in Electronic Engineering from the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Valparaíso, Chile, in 2010. I specialised in embedded systems and applied artificial intelligence. In 2016 I completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Hamburg (Germany). My Ph.D. research concerned computational models for adaptive robot behaviour based on neural mechanisms of self-preservation.

Since my electronic engineering studies, then working in the industry as student assistance in parallel to my studies and later as an engineer, I have been involved in automation and robotic projects. I have learned about both hardware and software development and developed my technical and scientific skill set. I enjoy the challenge of continually learning and developing custom automation and robotics solutions in dynamic and multidisciplinary environments. I am thorough and well organised.

In my professional career, I have actively developed my hard and soft skills. Within my hard skills, I can include the development of printed circuit boards (PCBs) with Protel, Altium and Eagle Cad, production of PCBs, soldering of PCBs, worked on cleanrooms, and programming both modern computers as well as embedded devices such as microcontrollers, DSPs, PLCs and FPGAs. Within my soft skills, I have coordinated the mechatronic design of mobile robots for the difficult task of humanitarian demining. More recently, I have been leading the development of the API for a humanoid robot for human-robot interaction. I also have vast experience in applied robotics and automation research in Chile and Germany. I have proven experience in conceptualising project proposals for diverse funding agencies.

Download my "Curriculum Vitae":

Education

May 2016 Doktor der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.)
University of Hamburg, Germany
Feb 2010 Electronics Engineer
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile
Aug 2006 – Jan 2008 International Exchange Program – Programa Ingeniería-DAAD
Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
Sep 2006 Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile

Pedagogical/Teacher Training

Aug 2020 – Dec 2020 Teacher Training Programme
Aarhus University, Denmark
May 2019 Two-Days Course in PhD Supervision
Aarhus University, Denmark
Jan 2018 Cultural Awareness Training
Aarhus University, Denmark

Research Integrity Qualifications

Nov 2020 Research Integrity at Aarhus University
Aarhus University, Denmark
Oct 2017 Protecting Human Research Participants
Cognition and Behavior Lab at Aarhus University, Denmark

Professional Experience

Feb 2023 – Present Researcher Group Leader
L3S Research Center, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
Aug 2021 – Jan 2023 Senior Researcher
Robotics Innovation Center at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH, Germany
Oct 2017 – Jul 2021 Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Aarhus University, Denmark
Jul 2014 – Sep 2017 Research and Teaching Associate
Knowledge Technology Group at the University of Hamburg, Germany
Jun 2010 – Sep 2013 Research Assistant
Knowledge Technology Group at the University of Hamburg, Germany
Jan 2010 – May 2010 Development Engineer
Linktronic Ltda., Chile
Jun 2008 – Jul 2009 Research Engineer
Southeastern Pacific Research Institute (SEPARI), Chile

Interships and Part-Time Experience

Mar 2019 – Mar 2019 Visiting Researcher
Robotics Laboratory at the University of Chile, Chile
Feb 2013 – Mar 2013 Visiting Research Fellow
Cognition and Interaction Lab. (COIN) at the University of Skövde, Sweden
Jun 2011 – Jun 2011 Visiting Research Fellow
Cognition and Interaction Lab. (COIN) at the University of Skövde, Sweden
Mar 2007 – Jan 2008 Student Internship (Werkstudent)
Qimonda Dresden GmbH & Co. OHG., Germany
Mar 2005 – Dec 2009 Research Assistant
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile
Dec 2003 – Feb 2004 Student Internship
Viña San Pedro S.A., Maintenance Department, Chile
Jul 2002 – Dec 2003 Teaching Assistant
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile

Awards, and Fellowships

Jan 2024 Top 10 Downloaded Articles 2023: Visuo-Haptic Object Perception for Robots: An Overview
Autonomous Robots Journal from Springer Nature Group
Jan 2006 International Exchange Program – Programa Ingeniería-DAAD
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
Aug 2003 Scholarship Guillermo Feick
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile
Mar 2003 Scholarship Bicentennial
Chilean Ministry of Education, Chile

Evaluation Committees

Dec 2020 Grant Reviewer
Engineering track at Fondecyt, Chile
Nov 2019 Evaluation Committee for PhD Position
Aarhus University Centre for Digitalisation, Big Data and Data Analytics (AU DIGIT)

Editorial Work

Ad-hoc reviewer of Journals, and Conference, see the detailed list of my verified reviews in Publons https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/1481323

Sep 2024 – Present Editorial Board
Springer Nature Group' npj Robotics Journal
Aug 2023 Guest Editorial Research Topic on Cognitive Inspired Aspects of Robot Learning
Frontiers in Neurorobotics
Jun 2022 Guest Editorial Special Issue on Emerging Topics on Development and Learning
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Jun 2021 Guest Editorial Special Issue on Continual Unsupervised Sensorimotor Learning
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Dec 2021 – Present Editorial Board
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Computational Intelligence in Robotics Section
Sep 2020 – Present Editorial Board
Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Humanoid Robotics Section
Mar 2020 – Dec 2024 Associate Editor
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Oct 2019 – Present Editorial Board
Frontiers in Neurorobotics

Affiliations

Jan 2020 – Dec 2020 Vice-Chair
IEEE CIS Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Nov 2018 – Present Member
Task Force on Developmental Psychology of the IEEE CIS Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
May 2018 – Dec 2021 Chair
Task Force on Action and Perception of the IEEE CIS Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
May 2018 – Jul 2021 Member
Aarhus University Centre for Digitalisation, Big Data and Data Analytics (AU DIGIT)
Feb 2018 – Present Member
IEEE CIS Technical Committee on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Dec 2017 – Present Honorary Member
Centro de Innovación y Robótica
Jun 2016 – Present Member
IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Cognitive Robotics
Jan 2011 – Present Member
EUCognition – European Society for Cognitive Systems

Organizing Committee of Scientific Events

Summer Schools

Dec 2024 – Dec 2024 Co-Chair
3rd Latin American Summer School on Cognitive Robotics (LACORO)
Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 Co-Chair
2nd Latin American Summer School on Cognitive Robotics (LACORO)
Sep 2020 – Sep 2020 Co-Chair
1st Latin American Summer School on Cognitive Robotics (LACORO)
Dec 2019 – Dec 2019 Publicity Chair
IEEE RAS International Summer School on Deep Learning for Robot Vision
Conferences

Sep 2025 – Sep 2025 Journal Track Chair
14th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL)
Sep 2022 – Sep 2022 Bridge Chair & Associate Editor
11th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL)
Mar 2022 – Mar 2022 Program Committee
4th International Symposium on Intelligent Computing Systems (ISICS)
Aug 2021 – Aug 2021 Publicity Chair
10th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL)
Oct 2020 – Oct 2020 Program & Finance Chair
10th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob)
Dec 2019 – Dec 2019 Program Committee
IEEE Symposium on Domestic Robotics at the IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI)
Jul 2014 – Jul 2014 Organizing Committee
International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN)
Sep 2012 – Sep 2012 Co-Organizer
Postgraduate Conference on Robotics and Development of Cognition (RobotDoC-PhD) at ICANN
Workshops

May 2024 Program Committee
Workshop on Human-aligned Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Agents and Robots at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Jun 2023 – Jun 2023 Program Committee
2nd International Workshop on Sentiment Analysis and Emotion Recognition for Social Robots (SentiRobots) at the International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE)
Jun 2023 – Jun 2023 Co-Organizer
Special Session on Human-in-the-loop Algorithms and System Designs at the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)
May 2023 – May 2023 Program Committee
Adaptive and Learning Agents (ALA) Workshop at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS)
Jun 2022 – Jun 2022 Program Committee
1st International Workshop on Sentiment Analysis and Emotion Recognition for Social Robots (SentiRobots) at the International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE)
Jun 2022 – Jun 2022 Program Committee
1st International Workshop on Ubicomp Environments and Proxemic Applications (UbicProxemics) at the International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE)
May 2022 – May 2022 Program Committee
Adaptive and Learning Agents (ALA) Workshop at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS)
Oct 2019 Co-Organizer
AU Smart Manufacturing Day
Aug 2019 Session Chair
Sensorimotor Development Session at the Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob)
Aug 2019 Co-Organizer
Workshop on Naturalistic Non-Verbal and Affective Human-Robot Interactions at ICDL-EpiRob
Sep 2018 Co-Organizer
Workshop on Continual Unsupervised Sensorimotor Learning at ICDL-EpiRob
Jul 2018 Organizer
Workshop on Next Generation Social Robots at the Akademiet for Talentfulde Unge | Midt – Sommercamp
Jul 2018 Program Committee
Workshop on Intelligent Assistive Computing at IEEE WCCI
May 2018 Co-organizer & Speaker
Workshop on Social Robotics at the Matchpoints seminar: The Welfare State: New Solutions to Old Problems?
Aug 2013 Co-organizer & Speaker
Special Session: Training in Robotics for Development of Cognition (RobotDoC) at ICDL-EpiRob

Invited Talks

  • Visuo-Haptic Object Perception for Robots: An Overview
    Prague, Czech Republic, Mar 2023 Language: English
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2023 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 8 Mar.\ 2023
  • Designing Safer Robotic Systems
    Talk at 12. Robotics Kongress – Safety, Security und Künstliche Intelligenz. Hanover, Germany, Feb 2023 Language: English
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2023 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 8 Feb.\ 2023
  • Designing Social Robots
    Talk at Bio Bio AI Robotics Summit. Concepción, Chile, Jan 2023 Language: Spanish
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2023 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 9 Jan.\ 2023
  • The Role of Cognitive-Inspired Machine Learning in Autonomous Assistive Systems
    Talk at Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen. Groningen, The Netherlands, Oct 2020
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2020 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 1 Oct. 2020
  • The Role of Cognitive Robotics in Autonomous Assistive Systems
    Talk at Seminar of the Computational Intelligence and Applications Research Group (CIA) Nottingham Trent University. Nottingham, UK, Jan 2020
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2020 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 22 Jan. 2020
  • The Role of Cognitive Robotics in Autonomous Assistive Systems
    Talk at GT8 Robotics and Neuroscience Workshop. Bordeaux, France, Nov 2019
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2019 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 26 Nov.\ 2019
  • Towards Temporal Difference Learning with Multidimensional Value Representations
    Talk at International Workshop on Intrinsically Motivated Open-Ended Learning. Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Jul 2019
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2019 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 1 Jul.\ 2019
  • Towards Temporal Difference Learning with Multidimensional Value Representations
    Talk at Institut für Neuroinformatik (INI) Colloquium. Bochum, Germany, May 2019
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2019 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 22 May 2019
  • Towards Temporal Difference Learning with Multidimensional Value Representations
    Talk at Wallenberg Symposium on Affective and Developmental Processes in Cognitive and Autonomous Systems -- Augmenting Deep Learning using Neural Dynamics and Predictive Coding. Gothenburg, Sweden, May 2019
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2019 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 7 May 2019
  • Towards Temporal Difference Learning with Multidimensional Value Representations
    Talk at Centro Avanzado de Tecnología para la Minería (AMTC). Santiago, Chile, 2019 Language: Spanish
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2019 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 1 Jul.\ 2019
  • Designing Social Robots
    Talk at Centro Avanzado de Tecnología para la Minería (AMTC). Santiago, Chile, 2019 Language: Spanish
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2019 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 1 Jul.\ 2019
  • Next Generation Social Robots
    Talk at Akademiet for Talentfuld Unge (ATU) Sommercamp. Herning, Denmark, Jul 2018
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2018 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 4 Jul.\ 2018
  • Socratic Adventure at the Museum (The SAM project)
    Talk at Matchpoints seminar: The Welfare State: New solutions to Old Problems?. Aarhus, Denmark, 2018
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2018 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 26 May 2018
  • Neurocomputational Mechanisms for Adaptive Self-Preservative Robot Behaviour
    Talk at Congress on Robotics and Neuroscience (CRONE). Valparaíso, Chile, Oct 2019 Language: Spanish
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2016 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 27 Oct.\ 2016
  • Sensorimotor Information for Concrete and Abstract Knowledge Representation
    Talk at Special Session: Training in Robotics for Development of Cognition (RobotDoC) at ICDL-EpiRob. Osaka, Japan, Aug 2013
    Navarro-Guerrero, Nicolás
    url, Copyright (©) 2013 Nicolás Navarro-Guerrero, 18 Aug. 2013

Media Coverage and Activities

  • Next Generation Social Robots
    Profile 2018—Department of Engineering, Aarhus University. 2018
    Harel, Kim; url,
  • Generando inteligencia artificial
    El Mercurio de Valparaíso. Valparaíso, Chile, Jun 2009
    Aspillaga, Valeria; url,
  • USM se adjudica importante proyecto para desarrollar robots anti minas
    Emol. Valparaíso, Chile, Mar Apr 2009 url,
  • Delegación de Defensa de EE.UU. visitó Separi en la U. Santa María
    La Tercera. Sep 2008 url,