Rafael Papallas
Rafael Papallas
Assistant Professor in Intelligent Robotics and AI
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BIO

I am an Assistant Professor at The American University of Beirut - Mediterraneo in Paphos, Cyprus. From 2021 until 2024, I was a Research Fellow in the School of Computer Science at the University of Leeds, UK. My research focuses on intelligent robotics and robotic object manipulation. I am interested in algorithmic problems, including motion planning, motion control and robot perception. You can read more here and watch videos here. I am an HEA Fellow, and previously I taught Intelligent Robotics at the University of Leeds. I delivered three courses on Coursera with University of Leeds and Institute of Coding.

EMPLOYMENT

Current Employment

2025 - Today

Assistant Professor

Department of Computer Science, American University of Beirut - Mediterraneo

Paphos, Cyprus

    I am a full-time tenure-track Assistant Professor in the department of Computer Science. My research focus is on intelligent robotics.

2025 - Today

Visiting Research Fellow

School of Computer Science, University of Leeds

Leeds, United Kingdom (Hybrid)

    I am a visiting research fellow with the Robot Manipulation Lab at Leeds, and I continue collaborations with Dr Dogar's group.

Previous Employment

2021 - 2024

Research Fellow (with teaching responsibilities)

School of Computer Science, University of Leeds

Leeds, United Kingdom

2017 - 2021

Teaching Demonstrator

School of Computer Science, University of Leeds

Leeds, United Kingdom

    Part time demonstration for a number of modules during my PhD, including "Algorithms and Data Structures II", "Artificial Intelligence", "Software Engineering", "Programming for the Web", "Mobile Application Development", "Procedural Programming", "Object-Oriented Programming". Received the HEA Associate Fellowship as a result.

2015 - 2016

Software Developer

Cimlogic (now ITI Group)

Saltaire, United Kingdom

    Spent a year working as a Software Developer. Worked with a number of Microsoft technologies, including ASP.NET and C#.

EDUCATION
2017 - 2021
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

School of Computer Science, University of Leeds

Leeds, United Kingdom

2013 - 2017
B.Sc (Hons) Computer Science (Industrial) - First Class Honours

School of Computer Science, University of Leeds

Leeds, United Kingdom

AWARDS & FUNDING

Awards

2023
Alan Turing PDE Award, The Alan Turing Institute
2017
Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP), UKRI/EPSRC

TEACHING

Click on each course to learn more.

Current Courses

2025 - Today
CMPS244 Database Systems, AUB Mediterraneo (Campus)
2025 - Today

Coursera

2023 - Today
An Introduction to Programming using Python, University of Leeds (Coursera)
2023 - Today
How to Get Into Robotics, University of Leeds (Coursera)
2023 - Today
How to Get Into Cloud Computing, University of Leeds (Coursera)

Past Courses

University of Leeds

2021 - 2024

HONOURS, FELLOWSHIPS & CERTIFICATIONS
2023
HEA Fellowship (FHEA), AdvanceHE
2021
AWS Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-02), Amazon Web Services
2020
HEA Associate Fellowship (AFHEA), AdvanceHE

PUBLICATIONS

Click on the title of each paper to access a pre-print, the full paper, videos and code.

Journal Papers

[1]
R. Papallas, A. G. Cohn, and M. Dogar. "Online Replanning With Human-in-the-Loop for Non-Prehensile Manipulation in Clutter — A Trajectory Optimization Based Approach". IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). 2020

Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers

[2]
D. Russell, R. Papallas, and M. Dogar. "Online state vector reduction during model predictive control with gradient-based trajectory optimisation". International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR). 2024
[3]
Z. Xu, R. Papallas, and M. Dogar. "Physics-Based Object 6D-Pose Estimation during Non-Prehensile Manipulation". International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER). 2023
[4]
S. Wang, R. Papallas, M. Leonetti, and M. Dogar. "Goal-Conditioned Action Space Reduction for Deformable Object Manipulation". IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). 2023
[5]
D. Russell, R. Papallas, and M. Dogar. "Adaptive approximation of dynamics gradients via interpolation to speed up trajectory optimisation". IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). 2023
[6]
R. Papallas, and M. Dogar. "To ask for help or not to ask: A predictive approach to human-in-the-loop motion planning for robot manipulation tasks". IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). 2022
[7]
R. Papallas, and M. Dogar. "Non-Prehensile Manipulation in Clutter with Human-In-The-Loop". IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). 2020
[8]
W. Bejjani, R. Papallas, M. Leonetti, and M. Dogar. "Planning with a Receding Horizon for Manipulation in Clutter Using a Learned Value Function". IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids). 2018

PROFESSIONAL LEADERSHIP

Other Leadership

2025 - Today
Coordinator of the Committee on Research, AUB Mediterraneo.
October 2023
Co-Organiser of the Workshop on Integrated Perception, Motion Planning and Control (IPPC), IROS, Detroit, USA.

Reviewer

ISER
International Symposium on Experimental Robotics
CASE
IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering
IJRR
The International Journal of Robotics Research
RSS
Robotics: Science and Systems
RA-L
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
ICRA
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
IROS
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
T-RO
IEEE Transactions on Robotics
ICAR
IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics
ISRR
International Symposium of Robotic Research
HRI
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

PRESENTATIONS

Invited Talks

2023
"Towards Physics-based Robotic Manipulation", UK-RAS International Robotics Showcase, Bristol, UK.
2021
"Physics-based Robotic Manipulation", Neapolis University Pafos, Paphos, Cyprus.

Conference Presentations

2022
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Kyoto, Japan.
2020
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Las Vegas, USA.
2020
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Paris, France.

SUPERVISION

University of Leeds

2023
Alexander Robins Summer Intern
2023
Hailemichael Gashaw Summer Intern
2022
Chenyu Liu Summer Intern

SELECTED OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS
illustrate.nvim: a plugin for neovim that lets you quickly create, search and open vector files from within neovim. Lua Apache-2.0 ⭐ ...
nvim-tmux-commander: a plugin for neovim to manage and run commands in a tmux pane using keybindings. Lua Apache-2.0 ⭐ ...
ur5controller: OpenRAVE Controller Plugin for the UR5 robot. C++ / Python GPL-3.0 ⭐ ...
hugo_gdpr_embeds: Hugo shortcode for embedding YouTube videos with a warning/consent form. HTML / JavaScript MIT ⭐ ...
pi_camera_ros: ROS2 package for Raspberry Pi camera, publishing in a compressed format. Python Apache-2.0 ⭐ ...
This CV was last updated in February 2025