Invited Talks

I gave various invited talks with different foci; I list them below ordered by type.

Key Notes

  • In the Launchpad workshop by ICAPS 2025, an event for Undergraduate and Master students, I gave an invited talk on early career advice, titled Planning Your Path Through Academia (slides).
  • At the Third SET & SysCom HDR/ECR Conference (2024) of UNSW Canberra, I gave an invited talk on success in academia, titled Reducing the Complexity of Success in Academia: A Guide for Young Researchers — Or: Extrapolation from One Data Point (slides).
  • Keynote speech about Companion Systems at the Digital Companion Workshop at MuC (Mensch und Computer; eng.: Human and Computer) 2018 in Dresden, Germany (slides) (slides including embedded videos).

Technical Presentations

  • At the ICAPS 2024 Summer School, I gave a(n invited) tutorial on HTN Planning; title: An Introduction to Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) Planning: Theoretical Foundations & Problem Solving (slides, 1on1) (slides, 4on1). Note that I was also an organizer of said summer school, so being "invited" comes with a footnote. However, I did indeed get invited because I was not responsible for the program but for organizational matters -- and so, I have indeed been invited by the co-organizer who was responsible for the program.
  • At AAAI 2021 conference, I gave a (pre-recorded) invited talk in their New Faculty Highlights Invited Speaker Program, which highlights AI researchers who have just begun careers as new faculty members (or the equivalent in industry). I presented an overview of my work until then. Video presentation. List of all presentations by all speakers.s
  • At ICAPS 2019, I gave a plenum talk on my dissertation due to winning the ICAPS 2019 Best Dissertation Award. It was called, just like my thesis, Hybrid Planning: From Theory to Practice (slides).
  • At a Dagstuhlseminar in 2018, I presented, in German, my dissertation Hybrid Planning: From Theory to Practice Hybrides Planen – Von der Theorie zur Praxis (slides). This was part of my nomination for the GI (Gesellschaft fuer Informatik) Best Dissertation Award.
  • At ICAPS 2018, I gave a tutorial on HTN Planning, together with my former colleague Daniel Höller. The tutorial had two parts, each talking 90 minutes. Note that this was indeed invited as we did not apply for this, but were approached by the conference organizers to create this tutorial. Note that my 2024 tutorial (see above) is much newer, and therefore for the content that does overlap, I like the 2024 material significantly more. However, the 2018 tutorial was twice as long, so you will find more content here.
  • At KI 2017 (the German Conference on Artificial Intelligence) I presented my 2017 IJCAI paper An admissible HTN planning heuristic (slides) in the "sister conference track", where they promote recent internationally published research.

As Visitor at Universities

I regularly travel to other Universities for International Collaboration. Usually, such a visit is kicked off with an Invited talk to which the entire faculty is invited.

  • In December 2025, I visited Prof. Damien Pellier and Associate Professor Humbert Piorino at LIG in Grenoble Alpes. I gave an overview of my most recent research interests. The talk was called Hierarchical Planning: Limits, Extensions, and Model Repair (slides).
  • In June 2025, I visited Assistant Prof. Jane Jean Kiam from the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) University Munich, Germany. I gave a high-level overview of my recent research directions, with more focus on applications. The talk was titled From Classical Planning to Hierarchical Planning, From Modeling Problems to Solving Them (slides, 1on1), (slides, 4on1).
  • Also in July 2023, I visited my former colleague, Prof. Birte Glimm, from Ulm University, Germany. I gave an introduction to hierarchical planning and the importance of automated modeling support. The talk was titled Hierarchical Planning: Introduction and Modeling Support (slides). This is the same talk as given at the University of Amsterdam a month earlier.
  • In June 2023, I visited my former colleague, Assistant Prof. Gregor Behnke, at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. I gave an introduction to hierarchical planning and the importance of automated modeling support. The talk was called Hierarchical Planning: Introduction and Modeling Support (slides).
  • In July 2022, I visited Assistant Prof. Jane Jean Kiam from the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) University Munich, Germany. I gave two talks: The first provided a high-level introduction to partial order causal link (POCL) and hierarchical task network (HTN) planning, and how the technology can be used as basis for intelligent assistants and various other applications; Hierarchical Planning and Reasoning about Partially Ordered Plans – From Theory to Practice (slides). This was the same talk as given one month earlier. The other talk was a lecture created by Daniel Hoeller on Plan and Goal recognition in hierarchical planning.
  • In June 2022, I visited my former colleague, Prof. Birte Glimm, from Ulm University, Germany. In her course Cognitive Systems I gave a high-level introduction to POCL and HTN planning, and applications thereof (see above). The talk was titled Hierarchical Planning and Reasoning about Partially Ordered Plans – From Theory to Practice (slides).