Erdi Sayar
Postdoctoral Researcher
Biography
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher working at Paderborn University and the Technical University of Munich (TUM). My research focuses on Reinforcement Learning, Diffusion Models for curriculum generation, Sample-Efficient Robotic Manipulation, and Safe Generative AI & Control Barrier Functions for autonomous systems.
I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in the Chair of Robotics, AI and Real-time Systems under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Alois Knoll in collaboration with the Human Brain Project.
Prior to TUM, I earned my M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from RWTH Aachen University (Grade: 1.0). I completed dual Bachelor's degrees in Mechatronics Engineering from Kocaeli University, where I graduated as Valedictorian (ranked 1st across the entire Faculty of Engineering), and Bochum University of Applied Sciences.
Research Interests
- Reinforcement Learning
- Diffusion Models & GenAI
- Robotic Manipulation
- Curriculum Learning & HER
- Control Barrier Functions
- Vision-Language-Action (VLA)
Education
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Ph.D. in Computer Science, 2020–2025
Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany
Thesis: Optimization control & sample efficiency in RL for robotic tasks
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M.Sc. in Electrical & Computer Engineering, 2018–2020
RWTH Aachen University, Germany
GPA: 1.5 / 1.00 (Thesis Grade: 1.0)
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B.Sc. in Mechatronics Engineering, 2010–2015
Kocaeli University, Türkiye
GPA: 3.82 / 4.00 · Valedictorian (Ranked 1st in Engineering)
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B.Sc. in Mechatronics Engineering, 2013–2014
Bochum University of Applied Sciences, Germany
GPA: 1.36 / 1.00
