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Name Matteo Merler
Email matteo.merler@gmail.com
Phone +39 342 3646961
Url https://merlerm.github.io/
Summary I am a researcher at the FBK NLP in Trento, Italy. This Fall, I will start my PhD at the Bethge Lab in Tübingen, Germany, as an ELLIS PhD Student and as part of the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (IMPRS-IS). I also work with Tom Silver's group for robotics and planning in Princeton, US. Previously, I obtained my MSc degree in Machine Learning, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence from Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland.

I want to build autonomous AI agents that learn from experience and adapt quickly to novel situations. I am interested in how agents turn prior knowledge and experience into effective behavior, and what they do when their existing knowledge or strategies are no longer sufficient.

My recent work explores executable world models and policies: using language models to construct programs that can be tested, revised, and reused to plan and act. I am particularly interested in how agents recognize the limits of these solutions, recover from unexpected situations, and retain what they learn. I work with both simulated games and real-world robotics as environments for agents to learn and adapt in. I am also curious about the connections between AI and cognitive science, and how insights from human cognition can inform the development of more intelligent agents.

You can also see what I am up to right now.

Work

  • 2025.01 - present

    Trento, Italy

    Researcher
    Fondazione Bruno Kessler
    Working as a pre-doctoral researcher ("Researcher 4 contract") in the Natural Language Processing Lab under the supervision of Bernardo Magnini.
    • Lead researcher on FBK's side of a joint project on planning with Vision-Language Models (with Aalto University), under resubmission.
    • Led a second project on selectively integrating VLM guidance with model-free Reinforcement Learning based on the agent's own uncertainty, with a preliminary version accepted at the CAIPI workshop at ECAI 2025 and a full paper in preparation.
    • Participating on private research for collaborations with companies.
    • Contributing to the draft of a Horizon Europe funding proposal, leading the lab's team for Language and Reinforcement Learning.
    • Active participation to the research group's scientific activities, including monthly meetings and collaborative discussions.
  • 2024.08 - 2024.09

    Helsinki, Finland

    Research Assistant
    Aalto University
    MSc Thesis worker in the Foundation Models for Language and Reinforcement Learning (Larel) group, supervised by Prof. Pekka Marttinen.
    • Conducted a research project on Symbolic Regression with Large Language Models, presented at the ACL Student Research Workshop.
    • Co-led a research project on Code World Models with PhD candidate Nicola Dainese, forming the basis of my Master's Thesis, accepted at NeurIPS 2024.
    • Started a project on planning with Vision-Language Models, later continued by both Aalto University and my current group at FBK.
    • Regularly attended lab meetings and participated in broader academic activities, including the Seminar on Large Language Models.
  • 2022.02 - 2022.06

    Trento, Italy

    Internship
    ThinkIN
    Worked as a software developer intern in collaboration with the University of Trento.
    • Designed and built a prototype for an indoor navigation system specifically targeted for supermarkets, to be used with the company's own location tracking system.

Education

  • Transcript
    2022.09 - 2024.09
    Master of Science
    Aalto University
    Machine Learning, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
    • Graduated with honors, with a final grade of 5.0/5.0 and a GPA of 5.0/5.0.
    • Thesis: Generating Code World Models with Large Language Models Guided by Monte Carlo Tree Search, supervised by Prof. Pekka Marttinen, published at NeurIPS 2024.
    • Thesis awarded as one of the three best MSc theses of 2024 at the School of Science.
    • Received the Dean's Scholarship for outstanding academic performance.
  • Transcript
    2019.09 - 2022.07
    Bachelor of Science
    University of Trento
    Computer Science
    • Graduated with a final grade of 110/110 cum laude (with honors) and a GPA of 28.46/30.
    • Thesis: Route Optimization for Indoor Spaces, supervised by Prof. Alberto Montresor (in Italian).
  • 2014.09 - 2019.07
    High School Diploma
    Liceo Scientifico Leonardo da Vinci
    Liceo Scientifico (Italian Scientific High School Diploma)
    • Graduated with a final grade of 100/100.

Publications

Volunteer

  • 2018.08 - 2018.08
    Volunteer
    Associazione Volontaria "Per un Mondo Migliore"
    I participated in a volunteering camp experience in Rijeka, Croatia where we helped different families and associations in need around the city and in mainland Croatia while living together in a shared home.
  • 2017.07 - 2017.07
    Volunteer
    Libera Associazioni Nomi e Numeri Contro le Mafie
    I participated in a volunteering camp experience in southern Italy where we cultivated the fields of mafia-confiscated houses for the Libera association, while also taking part in various activities on the territory and listening to testimonies from victims and policemen.

Awards

  • 2025.04.03
    Master's Thesis Award
    Aalto University, School of Science
    My Master's Thesis was awarded as one of the three best MSc theses of 2024 at the School of Science.

Languages

Italian
Native
English
C2 (Near-native proficiency)
Certificate
German
A2 (Basic)