PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Lars Lindemann

Lars Lindemann is a systems theorist who designs algorithms that keep autonomous systems, from self-driving cars to drone swarms, safe. He studied Systems, Control and Robotics as a master's student at KTH from 2014 to 2016, won a CDC Outstanding Student Paper Award in 2019 and earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering at KTH in 2020 with a thesis on multi-agent systems under Signal Temporal Logic specifications. From 2020 to 2022, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 2021 and 2022 he posted papers on learning safe control laws from expert demonstrations and on using conformal prediction for safe planning in dynamic environments. He was an assistant professor in USC's Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science from 2023 to 2025, where he led the Safe Autonomy and Intelligent Distributed Systems lab. Since September 2025, he leads the Algorithmic Systems Theory Laboratory at ETH Zurich, and in September 2026 he received a European Research Council Starting Grant for the SPAROTICS project.

Now at
Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zurich
Born
1989

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 2014–2016

    A robotics master's at KTH

    He comes from Kiel in Germany, where he studies at Christian-Albrechts-Universität. From 2014 to 2016, he is a student in KTH's master's programme in Systems, Control and Robotics, and he then pursues a PhD in Automatic Control.

  2. 2017

    Signal temporal logic for planning

    In March 2017, he and Dimos V. Dimarogonas post Robust Motion Planning employing Signal Temporal Logic, which pairs Signal Temporal Logic with model predictive control. The paper introduces a robustness metric called Discrete Average Space Robustness and casts planning as a convex linear program.

  3. 2019–2020

    A PhD at KTH

    In 2019, he wins a CDC Outstanding Student Paper Award for a paper with Dimarogonas on control barrier functions for multi-agent systems under conflicting Signal Temporal Logic tasks. He defends his thesis, Planning and Control of Multi-Agent Systems under Signal Temporal Logic Specifications, in KTH's Division of Decision and Control Systems in October 2020, with Dimarogonas as supervisor. He earns a PhD in Electrical Engineering from KTH in 2020.

  4. 2020–2022

    Postdoc at Penn

    From 2020 to 2022, he is a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering. In November 2021, he and five coauthors, including Nikolai Matni, post a method for learning robust output control barrier functions from safe expert demonstrations. They test it in the CARLA driving simulator, learning safe control laws from simulated RGB camera images.

  5. 2022

    Conformal prediction for safe planning

    In October 2022, he posts Safe Planning in Dynamic Environments using Conformal Prediction with Matthew Cleaveland, Gihyun Shim and George J. Pappas. Its model predictive controller combines trajectory predictions with conformal prediction regions to give probabilistic safety guarantees, shown at a pedestrian-filled intersection in CARLA. He is also a finalist for the Best Paper Award at the 2022 Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control.

  6. 2023–2025

    Assistant professor at USC

    From 2023 to 2025, he is an assistant professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, where he leads the Safe Autonomy and Intelligent Distributed Systems (SAIDS) lab. He also serves as associate director of USC's Center for Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence.

  7. 2025

    Moving to ETH Zurich

    In July 2025, the ETH Board appoints him Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Algorithmic Systems Theory in ETH Zurich's Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. He joins ETH Zurich in September 2025 and leads the Algorithmic Systems Theory Laboratory within the Automatic Control Laboratory. In a December 2025 interview, he describes designing decision-making, verification and monitoring algorithms for self-driving cars, drone swarms and other autonomous systems.

  8. September 2026

    An ERC Starting Grant

    In September 2026, he receives a European Research Council Starting Grant for SPAROTICS, a project on spatiotemporal robustness for time-critical systems in multi-agent autonomy. He is Assistant Professor of Algorithmic Systems Theory at ETH Zurich's Automatic Control Laboratory, where he studies the robustness of autonomous control systems.

Career

  1. Since 2025ETH ZurichAssistant Professor of Algorithmic Systems Theory
  2. Since 2025Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH ZurichLaboratory Lead
  3. 2023–2025University of Southern CaliforniaAssistant Professor
  4. 2023–2025Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, University of Southern CaliforniaLab Lead
  5. 2020–2022University of PennsylvaniaPostdoctoral Fellow

Education

  1. 2020KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyPhD in Electrical Engineering
  2. 2016KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyMaster's degree in Systems, Control and Robotics
  3. Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu KielStudent

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Lars Lindemann. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes ETH Zurich. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes ETH Zurich. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. Universities had a net outflow of 2,068 moves in AI careersIncludes ETH Zurich. Our estimates of career flows and median h-index across universities and companies in AI, including the role of joint appointments and earlier academic jobs.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Lars Lindemann yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Lars found KTH when looking for new challenges kth.se. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. [1703.02075] Robust Motion Planning employing Signal Temporal Logic arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. 2019 Recipients | IEEE Control Systems Society ieeecss.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Planning and Control of Multi-Agent Systems under Signal Temporal Logic Specifications | KTH kth.se. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Lars Lindemann | NCCR Automation nccr-automation.ch. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. [2111.09971] Learning Robust Output Control Barrier Functions from Safe Expert Demonstrations arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. [2210.10254] Safe Planning in Dynamic Environments using Conformal Prediction arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Safe Control for Learning-Enabled Autonomy with Conformal Prediction | Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering mae.ucsd.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Eight professors appointed | ETH Zurich ethz.ch. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. The Chicken-and-Egg problem of AI: How autonomous systems become trustworthy – Dept. of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering | ETH Zurich ee.ethz.ch. Checked 20 October 2026.
  11. ERC Starting Grant for Professor Lars Lindemann – Dept. of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering | ETH Zurich ee.ethz.ch. Checked 20 October 2026.