Assistant professorship for Dr Matias Valdenegro Toro

The path taken by our alumnus Prof. Dr. Matias Valdenegro Toro has paid off. Since the beginning of February, Valdenegro Toro has been "Assistant Professor for Machine Learning" at the Bernoulli Institute for Computer Science and Mathematics of the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and teaches in the Master of Artificial Intelligence and Master of Computational Cognitive Science programmes.

Valdenegro Toro came to Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences from Chile in 2012 to begin his Master's degree in the Department of Computer Science in the Autonomous Systems programme with a focus on robotics and AI. In 2014, he graduated with a Master of Science in Autonomous Systems, with his thesis "Fast Text Detection for Road Scenes“, which was awarded the study prize of the AFCEA Bonn e.V. and the prize of the sponsors of the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences e.V. in 2015.

For his doctorate, he went to Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was involved in research on the development and improvement of underwater robots in an EU project "Robocademy“. He completed his doctorate in 2019. Then in 2018, Valdenegro moved to the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence in Bremen where he worked until taking the Professorship in Groningen.

Dr. Valdenegro conducts research on general robot vision and perception, with the goal of improving AI safety in real-world environments. His research interests include deep learning, robot vision, uncertainty quantification, explainable machine learning and their applications in robotics and underwater environments.

He is well connected in the Department of Computer Science and has a lively exchange of knowledge with his former colleagues.

We congratulate him warmly and wish him all the best for the future!