Simon Hirländer
Vice Director, IDA Lab | Team Lead, Smart Analytics & Reinforcement Learning
Paris Lodron University Salzburg | Visiting Scientist, CERN
About
I am Vice Director of the IDA Lab and lead the Smart Analytics & Reinforcement Learning (SARL) team at PLUS University in Salzburg.
My work is defined by a "theory-to-application" pipeline. As a Physicist-Engineer, I bridge the gap between rigorous theoretical physics—specifically the modeling of complex dynamical systems—and modern Artificial Intelligence. I serve as a Visiting Scientist at CERN, where I lead efforts to automate the world's largest particle accelerators using safe, uncertainty-aware Reinforcement Learning.
Beyond academia, I aggressively pursue technology transfer, applying the same high-precision control methods used for protons to industrial challenges in steel manufacturing, medical technology, and smart energy grids.
Research Interests: Sample-efficient reinforcement learning, safe RL, model-based methods, meta-learning, applications in accelerator physics, robotics, healthcare, and industrial control systems.
Research Highlights
Recent News
2nd RL Bootcamp
Co-organizing the 2nd Reinforcement Learning Bootcamp at PLUS University.
Read more →Keynote at iDSC'25
Delivered keynote on "From Theory to Practice: RL as the 21st-Century ML Paradigm".
Read more →RL4AA Workshop Hamburg
Co-organized international workshop on RL for Autonomous Accelerators.
Read more →Background
My team focuses on various flavors of reinforcement learning, multivariate time series and analytics, Bayesian methods, control theory, and physics. Before joining PLUS, I worked at CERN where I completed my PhD (ranked as "Excellent"). My doctoral work solved a long-standing discrepancy in the LHC tune-shift by developing novel analytical solutions using Green functions on the Riemann-sphere.
Community Leadership
- Organize the "RL Coffee" - monthly meetup (first Friday of each month) for RL researchers and practitioners
- Co-organize the RL Bootcamp - annual intensive training program
- Lead the RL4AA (Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Accelerators) international collaboration
- Delivered a TEDx talk: "AI is what we make it"
Collaborations
Research Institutions: CERN, DESY, KIT, SLAC, GSI, DLR
Industry Partners:
- Medical Technology: W&H Dentalwerk (Precision control for piezo drivers)
- Steel & Heavy Industry: Danieli Automation (Rolling mill optimization), Palfinger (Hydraulics)
- Energy & Sustainability: Copa-Data (Smart grid optimization)
- Manufacturing: STIWA Group (Assembly line automation)
- Knowledge Systems: Redlink (Neuro-symbolic AI)
Teaching
Courses at Paris Lodron University Salzburg (PLUS):
- Advanced Reinforcement Learning and Agentic AI Systems
- Introduction into Deep Reinforcement Learning
- Introduction to Reinforcement Learning
- Advanced Topics in Reinforcement Learning
- Special Topics in Data Science
- Mathematical Foundations in Precision Medicine
- AI Bachelor Seminar
Current Students
I am privileged to work with talented students on exciting research topics. Our team includes PhD students, Master students, and Bachelor students working on various aspects of RL and AI.
Recent topics include: Multi-agent RL, energy optimization, accelerator control, nautical robotics, assembly line optimization, and more.
Contact
Email: simon.hirlaender@plus.ac.at
Office: IDA
Lab, PLUS University Salzburg
Department: Artificial Intelligence and Human Interfaces
Faculty: Digital
and Analytical Sciences
Interested in collaboration? Feel free to reach out if you're interested in research collaborations, industrial partnerships, or student opportunities.