Magdalena Yordanova
Photo: SCIoI
Magdalena Yordanova is a computer engineer and robotics researcher with interests in cognitive robotics, automation, machine learning, and sensorimotor learning.
She joined SCIoI as a doctoral researcher in October 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Verena Hafner.
Magdalena completed her bachelor’s and master’s studies at the Technical University of Berlin in Computer Engineering. During her work at Fraunhofer IPK and at the university, she gained experience in different robotics fields, both working with industrial robot arms and mobile robots, which is now expanding to humanoid robots.
At SCIoI, Magdalena is part of Project 45B. Inspired by nature, the research focuses on the role of plasticity in sensorimotor learning, dealing with the problem of catastrophic forgetting.
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Yordanova, M., & Hafner, V. V. (2026). Demonstration-Guided Reinforcement Learning for Continuous Sensorimotor Learning in Dynamic Environments. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 1343(1), 012020. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/1343/1/012020
Yordanova, M., & Hafner, V. V. (2025). Memory-Feedback Controllers for Lifelong Sensorimotor Learning in Humanoid Robots. In O. Brock & J. Krichmar (Eds.), From Animals to Animats 17 (pp. 275–286). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71533-4_21
Yordanova, M., & Hafner, V. V. (2025). Human-in-the-Loop Lifelong Visuomotor Edge-Case Adaptation [Poster]. IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL).
Mellmann, H., Arbuzova, P., Kontogiorgos, D., Yordanova, M., Haensel, J. X., Hafner, V. V., & Bryson, J. J. (2024). Effects of Transparency in Humanoid Robots - A Pilot Study. Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 750–754. https://doi.org/10.1145/3610978.3640613
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