Carl Brander
Applied Scientist 2
About
Carl Brander is an Applied Scientist at Microsoft working on robot learning within the Spatial AI Lab in Zurich. His research focuses on Vision‑Language‑Action (VLA) models for embodied AI, with an emphasis on spatial representation learning and real‑world robotic manipulation.
He completed his MSc in Robotics at ETH Zurich, where his work centered on computer vision and robot learning. During his master’s thesis at Microsoft Research, Carl investigated spatial co‑training approaches for improving the generalization of VLA models in robotic manipulation. His broader interests include multimodal robot learning, perception‑driven control, and scalable data collection for real‑world robots.
Carl has industry experience from Tesla and McKinsey & Company and is actively involved in research mentorship and student collaboration within the lab.