Oliver Schön
Oliver Schön
Postdoctoral Researcher
Based in Zürich, Switzerland

About Myself

My personal motto is “it's about becoming the best version of yourself.” Great goals come with great effort — and while people would describe me as sociable and curious, my most valuable skill is perseverance: never settling for less.

153
Citations
20
Publications
8
h-index

Awards & honors

Doctoral College Outstanding Thesis Medal

Newcastle University · 2025

Top 3 · CSS TC Outstanding Student Paper Prize

IEEE Control Systems Society · 2023

ACC Student Travel Award

AACC · IEEE · ASME · SIAM · NSF · 2024

CDC Student Travel Award

IEEE CSS & CDC · 2023

PhD Studentship

Newcastle University, School of Computing · 2022

e-fellows Scholarship

e-fellows.net · 2021–24

Erasmus+ European Scholarship

DAAD · 2020

Deutschlandstipendium

Studienfonds OWL · 2015 & 2016

High School Graduation Award in Chemistry

GDCh · 2015

High School Graduation Award in Physics

DPG · 2015

Work experience

2026 — present
01/2026 – today

Postdoctoral Researcher

ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Research on safe and trustworthy autonomy.
2024 — 2025 · concurrent roles
07/2025 – today

Research Associate

University of Birmingham, UK
Data-driven correct-by-design control of stochastic systems.
02/2024 – 09/2025

Supervisor

Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
Job interviews; supervising students on papers.
10/2024 – 02/2025

Venture Scientist

European Innovation Council (EIC), EU
EIC Pioneer Programme for innovative researchers.
2022 — 2025 · Newcastle era · concurrent roles
02/2023 – 09/2025

Supervisor

Newcastle University, UK
MSc/BSc theses, interviews, HyCoDeV & SymAware teams.
09/2022 – 01/2024

Demonstrator

Newcastle University, UK
Tutoring: bio-inspired algorithms, AI, Python, modeling.
10/2022 – 01/2024

Treasurer

ESN Newcastle, UK
Finance for one of the UK's biggest ESN sections.
02/2023 – 11/2023

Venture Scientist

Conception X, London, UK
Deeptech entrepreneurship — Cohort 6.
2020 — 2021 · concurrent roles
02/2021 – 05/2021

Student Trainee

Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart
AI-aided control for a lab-on-chip system.
2020 – 2021

Scientific / Research Assistant

Heinz Nixdorf Institut, Paderborn
MBSE and physics-guided neural networks.
During studies · 2013 — 2019

Werkstudent & Intern

HARTING Applied Technologies, Espelkamp
Technology and product development.

Technical Intern

Martinrea Honsel, Meschede
Manufacturing and engineering.

Graduate & Student Assistant

Paderborn University
Teaching and research support.

Education

01/2022 – 11/2025

PhD, Computer Science

Newcastle University, UK
Robust Formal Verification & Synthesis of Cyber-Physical Systems. Supervisor: Dr Sadegh Soudjani. Doctoral College Thesis Prize.
10/2018 – 06/2021

MSc, Mechanical Engineering

Paderborn University, Germany
Mechatronics & machine learning. Grade 1.1 / A+ / First.
01/2020 – 06/2020 · exchange

MSc, Energy & Environmental Tech.

University of South-Eastern Norway
Grade 1.2 / A+ / First.
10/2015 – 09/2018

BSc, Mechanical Engineering

Paderborn University, Germany
Product development. Grade 1.7 / A- / First.
2007 – 2015

Abitur (NRW)

Gymnasium Maria Königin, Lennestadt
Grade 1.3 / A / First. Awards in Chemistry & Physics.

Conferences & research visits

Hover or tap a dot to see what happened there.

Jul 2024 · Toronto, Canada

American Control Conference (ACC) 2024

Presenter
2023–24 · Boulder, USA

IFAC ADHS 2024 & CU Boulder visit

Presenter & visiting researcher — ARIA Systems Group
Dec 2023 · Singapore

62nd IEEE CDC 2023

Presenter
2022 · Eindhoven, Netherlands

Visiting Researcher — TU Eindhoven

Control Systems group — Dr Sofie Haesaert & Birgit van Huijgevoort.
Dec 2022 · Cancún, Mexico

61st IEEE CDC 2022

Presenter

Skills

Technical & IT

MATLABPythonC++JuliaC# DS SolidWorksAdobe IllustratorArduinoRaspberry PiAndroid Dev

Languages

German

Native speaker

English

C1 / C2

Norwegian

Beginner

Latin

Adv. Proficiency Cert.

Life & volunteering

When I think about what adds the most value to my life, it's the friends and family I'm blessed with — spending time with different people, having fun, and writing memories.

Let's work together

Open to collaborations, talks, and questions on safe autonomy and formal methods.