Sebastijan Dumancic

Algorithmics group. Delft University of Technology

prof_pic.jpg

Office 4.East.220

Van Mourik Broekmanweg 6

2628 XE Delft

How can we make machines learn from as little data as possible?
How can we make machines that effectively deploy their knowledge in novel situations?

I try to answer these questions by investigating how can we use programming languages to represent what artificially intelligence agents know and how they act. In pursuing this goal, I work on program synthesis, which focuses on learning programs from examples, and probabilistic programming, which focuses on representing and reasoning with probabilistic models represented as computer programs. In both fields, representing knowledge as a program is the key feature that allows us to capture knowledge of arbitrary complexity, use it flexibly, and acquire it from little experience.

I am also interested in application of program synthesis and probabilistic programming in scientific discovery (especially geophysics), transportation, robotics and planning.

Before joining TU Delft, I was an FWO-funded postdoctoral fellow in the DTAI lab at KU Leuven working with Hendrik Blockeel and Luc De Raedt, where I also obtained my PhD. I was a visiting researcher at MIT, University of Oxford, and NEC Laboratories Europe.

news

Sep 16, 2024

I’m attending Aachen Symposium on Representation Learning to Act and Plan.

Jul 29, 2024

Tan Zhi-Xuan is visiting us today. We are excited to learn more about her work on probabilistic programming and model-based planning.

Jul 16, 2024

I’m participating in the IAS Amsterdam workshop on Logic and AI

Jun 19, 2024

I’m giving a lecture on machine learning with provable guarantees at the SIKS course on Neuro-symbolic AI

Apr 30, 2024

I’m attending the European AI for Fundamental Physics Conference 2024

Apr 1, 2024

Mara joins us as an MSc student. Mara will be working on automatically constructing better proposals in probabilistic programming with constraint solvers.

Mar 11, 2024

Lorenzo joins us as a PhD student. Lorenzo will be working with Fernando Kuipers and me on program synthesis for programmable networks, as a part of the Future Network Services project

Mar 1, 2024

Stef joins us again as a research assistant helping us to get Herb in a good shape

Mar 1, 2024

Han joins us as an MSc student. Han will be working with Frans Oliehoek and me on probabilistic programming and MDPs.

Feb 1, 2024

Jord Molhoek defended his master thesis Reasoning about MDPs Abstractly – Bayesian Policy Search with Uncertain Prior Knowledge, exploring how uncertain prior knowledge can be leveraged in MDPs with probabilistic programming

Jan 29, 2024

I’m visiting Nathanaël Fijalkow’s group at CNRS in Bordeaux

Jan 15, 2024

I’m giving a talk on the need for a neuro-symbolic languages at the Probabilistic Learning and Reasoning mini-symposium, co-located with Emile Van Krieken’s PhD defence. I am also one of Emile’s examiners.

Jan 12, 2024

Avi joins us as an MSc student. Avi will be working on improving reasoning in large langauge models with probabilistic programming and theorem provers.

Jan 1, 2024

Liang joins my group as a postdoc. He will be working on probabilistic programming for coupled physics simulators.

Jan 1, 2024

I am acting as a co-chair for the Special Track on Reasoning, Learning, and Decision-Making at KR 2024 together with Jean Christoph Jung and Iran Mansouri

Nov 15, 2023

Lola joins us as an MSc student. Lola will be working on incremental inference in probabilistic programs.

Nov 15, 2023

Luka joins us as an MSc student. Luka will be working with Jesper Cockx and me on program synthesis for programs with dependent types.

Nov 15, 2023

Bart joins us as an MSc student. Bart will be developing a specialised constraint solver for program synthesis.

Oct 20, 2023

Hector Geffner is visiting us today. We are excited to learn more about his work on generalised planning.

Oct 1, 2023

Reuben joins us as a PhD student. Reuben will be working on program synthesis and probabilistic programming for scientific discovery.

Aug 28, 2023

Alexander Freeman defended his master thesis Exploiting modularity during program synthesis, exploring how modularity can help us explore program spaces better

Aug 24, 2023

Gautham Venkataraman defended his master thesis Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – On exploration of solution reuse in VRPTW, exploring how exploit structure in vehicle routing problems thorugh probabilistic programming

Aug 22, 2023

Timo Jugariu defended a master thesis Program Synthesis for Programmable Data Planes, exploring the potential of progrma synthesis to automatically configure programmable networks

Jul 21, 2023

Reuben Gardos Reid defends his thesis Inferring Robust Plans with a Rail Network Simulator on using probabilistic programming to deal with uncertainty in railway planning problems

Jul 7, 2023

Pepijn Klop defended a master thesis Augmenting Program Synthesis with Large Language Models, exploring how large language models can help us generate more expamples for program synthesis

Jul 4, 2023

Jaap de Jong defended his master thesis Speeding up program synthesis with specification discovery, showing how we can automatically discover program equivalences and specifications in program synthesis from data

Feb 7, 2023

Andrew, Celine and I are giving a tutorial on inductive logic programming at AAAI’23.

Jan 12, 2023

Our RAIL lab has been funded through the ROBUST programme

Dec 15, 2022

I’m hiring a postdoc to work on probabilistic programming and simulators in geophysics! Check out the details here

Nov 1, 2022

I’m visiting Josh Tenenbaum and Tom Silver at MIT.

Oct 28, 2022

Dirk van Bokkem, a Master student I co-supervised with Neil, has won the second prize 2nd prize of the Young Talent KNVI/KIVI thesis prizes for Computer Science and Information Science.

Oct 1, 2022

Tilman Hinnerichs joined my group.

Sep 1, 2022

Issa Hanou has started a PhD with me and Mathijs de Weerdt. Issa will be working on making rail network planning more robust through insights from program synthesis and probabilistic programming.

Sep 1, 2022

A paper on automated decision-making for greenhouse climate management, with Neil and a Master student Dirk van Bokkem, is accepted at IAAI 23.

Jun 1, 2022

Our paper on provably safe machine learning, with Kshitij and Hendrik is accepted to ECML PKDD 22.

Apr 1, 2022

I’m visiting Andrew Cropper at Oxford.

Sep 9, 2021

I have joined the Algorithmics group at the Delft University of Technology as an Assistant Professor!

Sep 1, 2021

Join Behrouz, Parisa, Alex and me on our Combining Learning and Reasoning - Programming Languages, Formalisms, and Representations workshop at AAAI 22

Jan 16, 2021

I gave a talk on what abstraction can do for program induction at the Automated Verification group, Oxford University. slides

Dec 16, 2020

I gave a talk on what abstraction can do for program induction at CoCoSci lab, MIT. slides

Dec 2, 2020

Our work on knowledge refactoring for program induction is accepted to AAAI 21.

Nov 23, 2020

Our work with Teal Partners on using automated reasoning for payroll management is accepted to IAAI 21.

Sep 26, 2020

I will be giving a tutorial on neuro-symbolic AI at AAAI 21 with Luc, Giuseppe and Robin. Stay tuned!

Jun 5, 2020

A paper on tackling noise in semi-supervised clustering accepted to ECML 2020 in Ghent, Belgium.

Apr 28, 2020

Three papers accepted at IJCAI 2020 in Kyoto, Japan.

Sep 24, 2019

I’m speaking at the Decision Analytics Closing Symposium about constraint solving with Z3

Sep 12, 2019

I’m speaking at the Aritificial Intelligence Applied in Industry symposium about our work with Skyline Communications

Aug 13, 2019

I’m honoured that my PhD thesis has been awarded a honourable mention for the EurAI Distinguished Dissertation Award 2018!

Jun 21, 2019

I’m honoured to be among the Distinguished Program Committee at IJCAI 2019!

May 9, 2019

Two papers accepted at IJCAI 2019 - Learning Relational Representations with Auto-encoding Logic Programs and A Comparative Study of Distributional and Symbolic Paradigms for Relational Learning!