Ufuk Çakır

My research at the Oxford Robotics Institute focuses on decision making under uncertainty for natural hazard management. Witnessing the impact of the 2023 earthquake in Turkey motivated me to shift my research toward understanding how we can make “better” decisions under high-stakes and uncertain scenarios, what “better” even means, and how to use Reinforcement Learning in this context such that it is ethical and safe.

Before joining Intelligent Earth, I studied Physics in Heidelberg, focusing on Machine Learning applications in computational astrophysics.

Outside my academic work, I am either thinking about my cats I had to leave with my family in Germany, or looking for ways to volunteer, for example at the Making a Difference Programme (MT 2025) led by the Oxford University Careers Service, where we collaborated with the EY Foundation to investigate the impacts of AI on social mobility.

I am also part of the Intelligent Earth Communications team, helping to inform the general public about the cool research we do here!