Welcome!
Hi, I am a Ph.D. candidate and research associate in the
Collaborative Artificial Intelligence (CAI) group under the supervision of
Prof. Dr. Andreas Bulling at the
University of Stuttgart, Germany.
Additionally, I am a Ph.D. scholar at the
International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (IMPRS-IS).
Next to Andreas Bulling, Prof. Dr. Georg Martius (
Max Planck Institute for Intelliegent Systems,
University of Tübingen) and Dr. Charley Wu (
University of Tübingen) are part of my IMPRS-IS Thesis Advisory Committee.
I research cooperative AI with a focus on social reasoning and generalisation.
Specifically, in my work I investigate the intersection of multi-agent Reinforcement Learning, computational Theory of Mind, and ad-hoc teamwork.
I specifically focus on hard generalisation problems in open-ended learning with unknown partners:
- I reasearch the intersection between partner and map generalisation, i.e. in The Overcooked Generalisation Challenge.
- I research how computational Theory of Mind and Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning can be combined to improve zero-shot human-AI cooperation.
- I try to adress how open-ended learning is connected to learning Theory of Mind in artificial agents.
You can find more about me or my work on the
about page, on our
groups website, or on
google scholar.
For students interested in a project or thesis please check the
open thesis page.
Publications
- 2024: Bortoletto, M., Ruhdorfer, C., Shi, L. & Bulling, A. (2024). Explicit Modelling of Theory of Mind for Belief Prediction in Nonverbal Social Interactions. Proc. European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), pp. 1–7, 2024. (oral) [paper] [website] [arxiv]
- 2024: Ruhdorfer, C., Bortoletto, M., Penzkofer, A. & Bulling, A. (2024). The Overcooked Generalisation Challenge. Preprint arXiv:2406.17949. [website] [arxiv]
- 2024: Bortoletto, M., Ruhdorfer, C., Shi, L. & Bulling, A. (2024). Benchmarking Mental State Representations in Language Models. ICML Workshop on Mechanistic Interpretability. [paper] [website] [arxiv]
- 2024: Bortoletto, M., Ruhdorfer, C., Abdessaied, A., Shi, L. & Bulling, A. (2024). Limits of Theory of Mind Modelling in Dialogue-Based Collaborative Plan Acquisition. Proc. 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), pp. 1–16, 2024. [paper] [website] [arxiv] [acl]
- 2024: Wang, Y., Jiang, Y., Hu, Z., Ruhdorfer, C., Bhâce, M., & Bulling, A. (2024). VisRecall++: Analysing and Predicting Visualisation Recallability from Gaze Bahaviour. Proc. ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (PACM HCI), 1–11. [paper] [website] [acm]
- 2020: Ruhdorfer, C., & Schulz, S. (2020). Efficient Implementation of Large-Scale Watchlists. PAAR+SC2 @ International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR) (pp. 120-133). [paper] [website]
I sometimes collaborate with others to work on topics not related to my core research interests:
- 2025: Hofmeyer, P. E., Burghaus, H., Ruhdorfer, C., Oswald, J., Bulling, A., Herdrich, G. (2025) Integration of Machine Learning in High-Enthalpy Plasma Spectroscopy. Proc. International Conference on Flight vehicles, Aerothermodynamics and Re-entry (FAR), pp. 1–8 [paper] [website]
Conferences, Summer Schools and Other
Awards
- 2024: Rul Gunzenhäuser award for the best Master's thesis at the Institute for Visualisation and Interactive Systems, Stuttgart University in 2023.[announcement] [website]
Teaching
For details please refer to
here.
- 2024 (winter): Mediainformatics (Organizer and Tutor) (Bachelor level course)
- 2024 (summer): Computational Theory of Mind and Cognition (Organizer, Tutor and Lecturer) (Master level practical course)
- 2024 (summer): Human Computer Interaction (Tutor) (Bachelor level lecture)
- 2023 (winter): Machine Perception and Learning (Tutor) (Master level lecture)
Supervision
I regulary supervise Master and Bachelor theses, see
here for a full list and if interested our
open projects page.
To this day I was or am involved in supervising a total of 3 students in their Master Thesis and a total of 8 students in various group projects offered through some of our lectures.
News
Happy to announce that I will attend the ELLIS summer school on Collaborative and Generative AI (CoGenAI) 2024 at Aalto University in Finland.
For details please refer to the official website here.
Matteo Bortoletto, Anna Penzkofer and I are organizing a practical course on Computational Theory of Mind and Cognition for master students in computing fields at the University of Stuttgart.
The goal of this course is to familiarise students with exciting current research topics at the intersection of machine learning, computational cognitive modelling, and human-computer interaction.
We place a special emphasis on modelling core processes of human cognition in computing systems, i.e. we place an emphasis on Machine Theory of Mind.
Techniques used by students in their projects include Multi-Modal Deep Learning, Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning and biologically plausible learning methods like Spiking Neural Networks.
The course is an advanced master-level one that requires previous experience with deep learning and related fields to enable students to engange with ongoing research in the field of computational human modelling.
I am pleased to announce that I am part of a paper that was recently accepted at ETRA 2024 which will be published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (PACM HCI).
The paper is titled VisRecall++: Analysing and Predicting Visualisation Recallability from Gaze Bahaviour:
Wang, Y., Jiang, Y., Hu, Z., Ruhdorfer, C., Bâce, M., & Bulling, A. (2024). VisRecall++:
Analysing and Predicting Visualisation Recallability from Gaze Bahaviour. Proc. ACM on
Human-Computer Interaction (PACM HCI), 1–11.
Thanks to all my co-authors!
I am truly honored to announce that my master’s thesis, entitled ‘Into the Minds of the Chefs: Using Theory of Mind for Robust Collaboration with Humans in Overcooked’, was awarded the 2023 Rul Gunzenhäuser Award.
The award is given to the best Master’s thesis at the Institute for Visualisation and Interactive Systems, Stuttgart University in the respective academic year.
I have joined the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (IMPRS-IS) and the Human Computer Interaction and Cognitive Systems (HCI CS) department at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, as a Ph.D. scholar.
My work will focus on improving human-AI cooperation by investigating the intersection of Machine Theory of Mind and Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning.
You can find more about my work here.
