Katja Hofmann

I am a Senior Researcher at the Machine Intelligence and Perception group at Microsoft Research Cambridge. My research focuses on reinforcement learning with applications in video games, as I believe that games will drive a transformation of how we interact with AI technology. I am the research lead of Project Malmo, which uses the popular game Minecraft as an experimentation platform for developing intelligent technology. My long-term goal is to develop AI systems that learn to collaborate with people, to empower their users and help solve complex real-world problems.

Before joining Microsoft Research, I completed my PhD in Computer Science as part of the ILPS group at the University of Amsterdam. I worked with Maarten de Rijke and Shimon Whiteson on smart search engines that learn directly from their users. My thesis on Fast and Reliable Online Learning to Rank in Information Retrieval can be downloaded from my personal homepage.