How Robots Make Sensible Decisions – TU Darmstadt's Department of Computer Science’s New Distinguished Lecture Series Kicks Off with MIT Researcher Kaelbling
Photo: private / edit. TU Darmstadt
The Department of Computer Science at TU Darmstadt is launching a new, high-profile lecture series. The first guest in the “Distinguished Lecture Series” on October 2, 2026, will be the renowned robotics researcher, Professor Leslie Pack Kaelbling, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States.
In her lecture titled “Rational Robots,” Kaelbling will address the design of intelligent robots. The MIT researcher advocates an explicitly “rational” approach in which robots are given goals through human instructions, based on which they then select the most effective action for the situation at hand. Kaelbling will illustrate this approach using several current research projects. The topic is also highly relevant to related fields such as mechanical engineering and electrical and information technology, where much of the current progress is happening at the intersection of these disciplines.
The new “Distinguished Lecture Series” is initially scheduled to take place once a year. These public events offer an opportunity to learn directly from outstanding guests who are shaping their respective fields on a global scale, to discuss challenging questions, and to forge connections that span disciplinary boundaries and continents. Each lecture will be followed by a get-together for personal exchange. With this new series, the Department of Computer Science is establishing a lecture format of this magnitude for the first time.
The kickoff event will take place on October 2, 2026, starting at 2:00 p.m. in the Maschinenhaus at TU Darmstadt (S1|05, Room 122, Magdalenenstraße 12, 64289 Darmstadt). The lecture is supported by the Cluster of Excellence “Reasonable Artificial Intelligence” (RAI).
About the person
Leslie Pack Kaelbling is one of the world’s leading researchers in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and machine learning. Her research focuses on teaching robots to behave adaptively and rationally in ways similar to humans. As a pioneer in the field of intelligent agents, she has laid important groundwork for modern approaches to AI.
Kaelbling holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and previously worked at Brown University. She was the founding editor-in-chief of the *Journal of Machine Learning Research*. Kaelbling is a fellow in the Cluster of Excellence “Reasonable Artificial Intelligence” (RAI), led by TU Darmstadt. RAI is dedicated to developing a new generation of AI systems based on reasonable resource use, data protection, and continuous improvement.
