Student Projects in LAS Group

We offer Semester Projects, Bachelor’s and Master’s theses in our group. Depending on your preference, there are opportunities for working on theory, methods, and applications. M.Sc. projects at LAS often result in publications at leading conferences.
A list of topics for which we are actively recruiting students is given below. If you don’t see a project below that fits well, but you are interested in the kind of research our lab does, feel free to still reach out. To learn more about the research done in the group, visit our recent publications. You can also learn more about research by individual group members.
If you are interested in working with us, you can send an application by clicking the button below. Make sure that your email includes: a résumé, a recent transcript of records, your intended start date, and we highly recommend that you mention the projects you are interested in, members of the group with whom you would like to work, or recent publications by the group relevant to your interests.

If you are a bachelors or masters student but not a student at ETH, please see the opportunity listed in Applications for Summer Research Fellowships.

Current Topics

The detailed project proposals can be downloaded only from the ETH domain.

Humanoid Locomotion Learning and Finetuning from Human Feedback

Learn and finetune robotic motions with sequence-conditioned reward models from human feedback.


Resources


Keywords: Reinforcement learning from human feedback, Self-supervised Learning, Robot learning

Safe guaranteed domain exploration with autonomous robots

Develop and deploy algorithms for safe exploration with non-linear dynamics and unknown objectives


Resources


Keywords: Gaussian Processes, Active learning, Bayesian optimization, Model predictive control

Non-Convex Reinforcement Learning via Submodular Optimization

Develop algorithms for decision-making beyond the limitations of classic reinforcement learning.


Resources


Keywords: Reinforcement learning, Non-Markovian Rewards, Statistics, Optimization

Online Fair Classification for Sequential Data

We aim to design online fair classifier for sequential data.


Resources

People


Keywords: Fairness, Online Classification

Generalization for Meta-Learning and Personalized Federated Learning

We aim to find the correct formulation for many important problems in meta-learning and design algorithms to solve the correct formulation.


Resources

People


Keywords: Generalization, Meta-Learning, Personalized Federated Learning

Bayesian Optimization with Privacy

Develop private algorithms for Bayesian Optimization and show that privacy does not come for free, it takes a toll on performance.


Resources


Keywords: Bayesian Optimization, Differential Privacy, Meta-Learning

Optimized Sampling and Reconstruction in NMR Spectroscopy

Optimize state-of-art NMR machine with data-driven methods.

Resources

People


Keywords: active learning, experiment design, real-world applications, neural networks

Human kernels – querying similarity

What are the right assumptions before using ML? Sometimes we don’t know we know. Can machines help us?

Resources


Keywords: active learning, experiment design, real-world applications, neural networks

Graph Neural Optimization for Molecular Design

Employing Graph Neural Networks, develop a scalable Bayesian optimization algorithm which generates valid molecules with desirable profiles. [At capacity for Spring semester 2024.]


People


Keywords: Molecular Design, Energy-based Generative Models, Bayesian Optimization, Graph Neural Networks, Methodology, Applied

Machine Learning for Population Dynamics

Design and model spatio-temporal population dynamics using recent techniques in optimal transport and machine learning with focus on applications in single-cell biology.

Resources


Keywords: optimal transport, spatio-temporal dynamics, partial and stochastic difference equations

Structured Exploration in Large-Scale Sequential Decision-Making

How can we leverage structure for efficient exploration? How can we scale these techniques in the context of deep learning and large data?


Keywords: exploration, information-directed sampling, reinforcement learning, active learning

Confident Estimation via Online Convex Optimization

How can we make confident predictions using online convex optimization?

Resources


Keywords: online convex optimization, confidence sets, frequentist and Bayesian statistics

Applications of Machine Learning for Choosing Crop Varieties

Learning crop variety selection and management policies from data.

Resources


Keywords: applied, uncertainty quantification, active learning, reinforcement learning, remote sensing

Assimilation of crop growth models with remote sensing

Monitoring staple crops with satellite data.

Resources


Keywords: applied, remote sensing, sustainable agriculture

Machine Learning for Converter Control

Algorithms for control of power electronics converters, in collaboration with Hitachi Energy.

Resources

People


Keywords: applied, reinforcement learning, control    

General Areas

We offer projects in several general areas.
  • Probabilistic Approaches (Gaussian processes, Bayesian Deep Learning)
  • Discrete Optimization in ML
  • Online learning
  • Large-Scale Machine Learning
  • Causality
  • Active Learning
  • Bayesian Optimization
  • Reinforcement Learning
  • Meta Learning
  • Learning Theory

Examples of Previous Master Theses

Lifelong Bandit Optimization: No Prior and No Regret
Awarded ETH Medal. Felix Schur with Jonas Rothfuss and Parnian Kassraie. UAI 2023. [paper]
BaCaDI: Bayesian Causal Discovery with Unknown Interventions
Alex Hägele with Jonas Rothfuss and Lars Lorch. AISTATS 2023. [paper]

MARS: Meta-Learning as Score Matching in the Function Space
Kruno Lehman with Jonas Rothfuss. ICLR 2023. [paper]
Neural Contextual Bandits without Regret
Parnian Kassraie with Andreas Krause. AISTATS 2022. [paper]

Near-Optimal Multi-Perturbation Experimental Design for Causal Structure Learning
Scott Sussex with Andreas Krause and Caroline Uhler. NeurIPS 2021. [paper] [blog]
DiBS: Differentiable Bayesian Structure Learning
Awarded ETH Medal. Lars Lorch with Jonas Rothfuss. NeurIPS 2021. [paper] [blog]

PopSkipJump: Decision-Based Attack for Probabilistic Classifiers
Noman Ahmed Sheikh with Carl-Johann Simon-Gabriel. ICML 2021. [paper]

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