Machine Learning Research Group

We are a machine learning research group at Aalto University lead by Arno Solin. We are affiliated with the Department of Computer Science (School of Science at Aalto) and the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI).

We focus on both theory and practice. Our goal is to develop new methods and algorithms that are able to adapt/learn from data but also obey structural or principal constraints. The research has a probabilistic (some say Bayesian) twist with a focus on uncertainty quantification and emphasis on scalable and even real-time inference. Even though we develop theory (methods and algorithms), we want to come up with things that actually work and can be shown to work even on limited hardware such as smart devices. This links the interest to information fusion where observations from different modalities (e.g., vision and movement) are combined.

Team

Principal Investigator

Arno Solin

Assistant Professor

Senior Researchers

Martin Trapp

Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher

Aidan Scannell

Postdoctoral Researcher

also with Aalto Robot Learning Lab

Marcus Klasson

Postdoctoral Researcher

also with Aalto Vision

Doctoral Students

Paul Chang

Doctoral Student

Ella Tamir

Doctoral Student

Rui Li

Doctoral Student

Riccardo Mereu

Doctoral Student

Prakhar Verma

Doctoral Student

Severi Rissanen

Doctoral Student

with M. Heinonen

Haishan Wang

Doctoral Student

with V. Garg

Bent Harnist

Doctoral Student

at Finnish Meteorological Institute

Interns, Research Assistants, and Visitors

Aleksanteri Sladek

Civil Service Worker

Anton Saukkonen

M.Sc. thesis worker

Alumni

  • Lassi Meronen (Doctoral Student)
  • Adam Kania (Intern)
  • Yuxin Hou (Doctoral Student)
  • Joel Jaskari (Doctoral Student)
  • Alexandros Matakos (Intern)
  • Anton Kullberg (visiting PhD student from University of Linköping)
  • Vikas Verma (Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher)
  • Joshua Burton (visiting PhD student from University of Manchester)
  • Magnus Ross (visiting PhD student from University of Sheffield)
  • Marshal Sinaga (Intern)
  • Yang Le (Visiting Professor from Xi'an Jiaotong University)
  • Andrea Pilzer (Postdoctoral Researcher)
  • Vincent Adam (Postdoctoral Researcher)
  • Subhankar Roy (visiting PhD student from University of Trento)
  • Santiago Cortés (Doctoral Student)
  • William J. Wilkinson (Postdoctoral Researcher)
  • Ari Heljakka (Postdoctoral Researcher)
  • Najwa Laabid (Summer Intern)
  • Harsh Dolhare (Intern)
  • Hanxiao Chen (Summer Intern)
  • Aastha Shah (Summer Intern)
  • Otto Seiskari (Project Researcher)
  • Pekka Rantalankila (Software Engineer)
  • Jerry Ylilammi (Software Engineer)
  • Christabella Irwanto (M.Sc. thesis worker)
  • Yaowei Li (M.Sc. thesis worker)
  • Ollie Hamelijnck (visiting PhD student from the Alan Turing Institute)
  • Johan Jern (M.Sc. thesis worker)
  • Will Tebbutt (visiting PhD student from Cambridge University)
  • Muhammad Kamran Janjua (Summer Intern)
  • Ferran Montraveta Roca (Summer Intern)

Graduated Doctors

The following students have graduated from the group this far:

Funding and support

We acknowledge the computational resources provided by the Aalto Science-IT project and CSC, and support and help from NVIDIA AI Technology Center (NVAITC) Finland, Saab Finland, BusinessFinland, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), and the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI).

We acknowledge funding from the Academy of Finland:

  • Probabilistic principles for latent space exploration in deep learning
    (2021–2026, grant id 339730)
  • Shallow models meet deep vision
    (2019–2023, grant id 324345)
  • Sequential inference for real-time probabilistic modelling
    (2017–2020, grant id 308640)

How to join

The main route for hiring doctoral students is through the HICT call (twice yearly). Prospective doctoral students with strong background in stats/maths/ML can also contact Arno directly, but due to email load, I might not answer all emails.

Prospective post-doc candidates can contact Arno directly (with a CV, motivation letter, and research statement). Contracts are typically made for either one or two years. Positions are research-based and candidates are expected to have previous experience in publishing in relevant venues. We also participate in calls for post-docs in specific topic areas.

We hire summer interns and research assistants through the department call (local students) and the international Aalto ASci call. Arno also supervises M.Sc. theses at Aalto and occasionally also B.Sc. theses related to research topics in the group.