Since 2016 I have been leading the Learning and Interaction Group at the departament of Advanced Robotics in the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). I joined IIT in 2012, first as a research fellow and then as postdoctoral researcher in 2013 under the mentorship of Sylvain Calinon. I received my bachelor's degree in mechatronics engineering from the "Nueva Granada" Military University (Bogota, Colombia - 2005), and got my master's degree in Automatic Control and Robotics (2007), and Ph.D in Robotics (2013) from the Polytechnical University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain).
I carried out my PhD research at the "Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial CSIC-UPC" under the supervision of Prof. Carme Torras and Dr. Pablo Jiménez. My research has been mainly focused on exploiting machine learning techniques, optimal control and Riemannian manifold theory to learn robot motion skills via human demonstrations and refinement methods. My fields of application lie on (dual-arm) manipulation tasks and human-robot collaboration.
Positions
2016 - Currently

Team leader
Department of Advanced Robotics in the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

2013 - 2016

Postdoctoral researcher
Department of Advanced Robotics in the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

2012 - 2013

Research fellow
Department of Advanced Robotics in the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

2007 - 2012

PhD fellow
Perception and Manipulation Group of the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial.

2011

Visiting researcher
Department of Advanced Robotics in the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

2009 - 2010

Lecturer
Mechatronics Engineering Faculty in the "Nueva Granada" Military University.

2007

Research Engineer
Perception and Manipulation Group of the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial.

2006

Development Engineer
Insepet Ltda.

Education
2008-2013 PhD in Automatic Control, Robotics and Vision, at the Polytechnical University of Catalonia UPC, Spain.
"Robot Learning from Demonstration of Force-based Manipulation Tasks"
Supervisors: Prof. Carme Torras, PhD. Pablo Jimenez.
Reviewers: Prof. Aleš Ude, Jožef Stefan Institute, PhD. Sylvain Calinon, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT).
Committee: Prof. Yiannis Demiris, Imperial College London, Prof. Aleš Ude, Jožef Stefan Institute, PhD. Cecilio Angulo, UPC.
2006-2007 MSc in Automatic Control and Robotics, at the Polytechnical University of Catalonia UPC, Spain.
"Device-independent haptic rendering system"
Supervisor: PhD. Pablo Jimenez.
Committee: PhD. Raul Suarez, UPC-IOC, PhD. Jan Rosell, UPC-IOC, PhD. Manel Frigola, UPC.
2001-2005 BSc in Mechatronics Engineering, at the “Nueva Granada” Military University, Colombia.
"Generalized PI-based controller design for a truck suspension system" (in Spanish)
Supervisor: PhD. Ervin Alvarez, Veracruzana University.
Projects

Technology Transfer (participation)

2016 - Currently

PHOLUS (Centauro-like robot for navigating, observing, and interacting in highly unstructured environments)
(Affiliated with ADVR-IIT)

European Projects (participation)

2012 - 2015

STIFF-FLOP (STIFFness controllable Flexible and Learn-able Manipulator for surgical OPerations)
(FP7-ICT-287728, affiliated with ADVR-IIT)
2011 - 2012

IntellAct (Intelligent observation and execution of Actions and manipulations)
(FP7-ICT2009-6-269959, affiliated with IRI CSIC-UPC)
2010 - 2012

GARNICS (Gardening with a cognitive system)
(FP7-ICT-247947, affiliated with IRI CSIC-UPC)
2007 - 2010

PACOPLUS (Perception, action and cognition through learning of object-action complexes)
(IST-FP6-IP-027657, affiliated with IRI CSIC-UPC)

National Projects (participation)

2010 - 2012

APREN (Modelos perceptivos y técnicas de aprendizaje para robots de servicios)
(CSIC project 201050E052, affiliated with IRI) - Spain
2009 - 2012

PAU (Perception and Action under Uncertainty)
(DPI2008-06022, affiliated with IRI) - Spain
2007 - 2012

MIPRCV (Multimodal Interaction in Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision)
(Consolider Ingenio 2010 project CSD2007-00018, affiliated with IRI) - Spain
Events Organization
2018

Co-organizer
ICRA 2018 Workshop on Human-Robot Interaction with UAVs: Challenges and Frontiers

2016

Co-organizer
IROS 2016 Workshop on Human-Robot Collaboration: Towards Co-Adaptive Learning Through Semi-Autonomy and Shared Control [Webpage]

2015

Main organizer
RO-MAN 2015 Workshop on Learning for Human-Robot Collaboration [Webpage]

Committees

2017-2018

Associate Editor
International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

2017

Main co-editor
Special Issue on Learning for Human-Robot Collaboration (Autonomous Robots)

2017-2018

Associate Editor
International Conference on Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IROS)

2017

Senior Program Committee Member
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)

2017

Program Committee Member
Colombian Conference on Automatic Control (CCAC)

2016

Program Committee Member
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)

Mentoring and Leadership
PhD

João Silvério (2014-2017) "Learning Bimanual Skills from Demonstrations: Coordination and Task Prioritization"
Domingo Esteban (2016-now)
Brian Delhaisse (2016-now)

Postdocs

Fares Abu-dakka (2016-Now)
Yanlong Huang (2017-now)
João Silvério (2017-now)

Reviewing Service
Journals

International Journal on Robotics Research (IJRR)
IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO)
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology (TCST)
IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics (T-MEC)
IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE)
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems (T-SMCA)
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)
IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics (T-MECH)
IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (CYB)
IET Control Theory & Applications (CTA) Journal on Human-Robot Interaction (JHRI)
Intech International Journal on Advanced Robotics Systems (IJARS)
Springer Journal of Intelligent Robotic Systems (JIRS)
Elsevier Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS)
Elsevier Pattern Recognition Letter (PR-L)
Springer International Journal on Social Robotics (SORO)
Frontiers Journal on Robotics and AI

Conferences

Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS)
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Robots (IROS)
IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)
IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR)
IEEE International Conference on Applied Bionics and Biomechanics (ICAAB)
International Conference on Virtual reality

Technologies