Last updated: Mar 14, 2022

Curriculum Vitae

Education

• PhD Candidate, Computer Science (Expected graduation: Summer 2022)
  Algorithmics Group, Supervisor: Dr. Matthijs Spaan
  Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
• Master of Applied Science, Industrial Engineering (2018)
  Human Factors and Applied Statistics Lab, Supervisor: Dr. Birsen Donmez
  University of Toronto, Canada
• Bachelor of Applied Science, Systems Design Engineering (2016)
  University of Waterloo, Canada

Publications

• Ponnambalam, C. T., Kamran, D., Simão T. D., Oliehoek, F. A., Spaan, M. T. J. (2022). Back to the Future: Solving Hidden Parameter MDPs with Hindsight. Adaptive Learning Agents Workshop at the 21st International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).
• Smit J., Ponnambalam, C. T., Spaan, M. T. J., Oliehoek, F. A. (2021). PEBL: Pessimistic Ensembles for Offline Deep Reinforcement Learning. Workshop on Robust and Reliable Autonomy in the Wild at the 30th International Joint Conference of Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI).
• Ponnambalam, C. T., Oliehoek, F. A., Spaan, M. T. J. (2021). Abstraction-Guided Policy Recovery from Expert Demonstrations. Thirty-First International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS).
• Ponnambalam, C. T., Oliehoek, F. A., Spaan, M. T. J. (2020). Abstraction-Guided Policy Recovery from Expert Demonstrations. Offline Reinforcement Learning Workshop at the Thirty-fourth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). [video]
• Ponnambalam, C. T., Donmez, B. (2020). Searching for street parking: effects on driver vehicle control, workload, physiology, and glances. Frontiers in Psychology 11, 2618 - 2631. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.574262.
• Neustroev, G., Ponnambalam, C. T., de Weerdt, M. M., Spaan, M. T. J. (2020). Interval Q-Learning: Balancing Deep and Wide Exploration. Adaptive and Learning Agents (ALA) Workshop at the 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS).
• Ponnambalam, C. T. (2018). Effects of searching for street parking on driver behaviour, physiology, and visual attention allocation: An on-road study. Masters Thesis.
• Ponnambalam, C. T., Cheng, R., & Donmez, B. (2018). Effects of Searching for Street Parking on Driver Behaviour and Physiology: Results From an On-Road Instrumented Vehicle Study. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 1404-1408).
• Kaya, N. E., Ayas, S., Ponnambalam, C. T., Donmez, B. (2018). Visual attention failures during turns at intersections: An on-road study. In Proceedings of the 28th Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals Conference.
• Giang, W. C., Ponnambalam, C. T., He, X., & Donmez, B. (2018). Medical dispatch decision support for transfer time estimation: Individual operator differences in system use. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care (Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 38-43).

Teaching Experience

• Project Supervisor, Delft University of Technology (Sept 2019 - )
  Supervising groups of graduate students in the course Algorithms for Planning and Scheduling.
• Dept. of Computer Science Help Centre, University of Toronto (May – Aug 2017)
  Assisted undergraduate computer science students with problems in a variety of computer science courses.
• Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Toronto (Jan – Apr 2017)
  Responsible for running tutorials, grading assignments and monitoring exams.

Conferences/Workshops/Summer Schools

• Offline Reinforcement Learning Workshop at Neural Information Processing Systems (2020). Virtual event. (poster presentation)
• Adaptive and Learning Agents (ALA) Workshop at International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (2020). Virtual event. (co-presenter)
• Advanced Course on AI Summer School - AI for Multi-Agent Worlds (2019). Chania, Greece. (poster presentation)
• Nordic Probabilistic AI Summer School (2019). Trondheim, Norway. (poster presentation)
• 28th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (2018). Delft, Netherlands. Jointly held with the International Conference on the Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research. (local organizing committee)
• International Summer School on Planning and Scheduling (2018). Noordwijk, Netherlands.
• 62nd International Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (2018). Philadelphia, USA. (poster presentation)
• Ontario Road Safety Forum - 3rd Meeting (2018). Toronto, Canada. (presenter)
• International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care (2018). Boston, USA. (poster presentation)

Awards

• Nordic Probabilistic AI Summer School Scholarship (June 2019)
  To attend the Nordic ProbAI Summer School.
• European Association for Artificial Intelligence Grant (July 2019)
  To attend the ACAI 2019 Summer School.
• University of Toronto Fellowship, Mech. & Ind. Engineering (Sept 2016 - Apr 2018)
  Funding for Masters research and study.
• Nuit Rose Festival (June 2017)
  Featured Artist, Computer vision interactive art exhibit titled “Kissing Booth”.
• Mech. & Ind. Engineering Symposium Poster Competition (May 2017)
  Finalist, Poster titled “Effects of Searching for Street Parking on Driver Behaviour, Physiology and Attention Allocation”.
• Sanford Fleming Foundation Consulting Eng. Competition Award (November 2015)
  2nd Place, Given a problem statement, teams research, develop and present a logical and feasible solution.
• Norman Esch Enterprise Co-op Award (May 2015)
  Winner, pitch for consulting group “Moddec”: providing operations research solutions to industry problems.

Work Experience

• Product Manager, Faria Education Group (Aug 2017 - Apr 2018)
  Responsible for overseeing the design and development of ManageBac, a learning management system for pre-university education used by over 2300 schools globally.
• Founder, Moddec (Apr 2016 - Apr 2017)
  Started a group applying operations research to problems in industry as part of an “entrepreneurial co-operative” internship. Won $5000 in a pitch competition.
• Software Developer, Resolver Inc. (Jan – Apr, Sept – Dec 2014)
  Front- and back-end development in an ASP.NET environment. Back-end was mostly in C#, VB, with the database managed with MS SQL Server. On the front-end, developed webpages and built new applications in AngularJS.
• Software Developer, InfoMine (May – Aug 2013)
  Developed, launched and tested web and desktop applications in a .NET environment; built tools for data migration which were responsible for freeing approximately 1.5 FTEs of geo-analysts’ time.
• Operations Manager, Faria Education Group (July 2010 – Dec 2012)
  Moved from a position in data collection to becoming the manager of a team conducting sales and support for ManageBac, a learning management system for pre-university education.