Universität des Saarlandes (DFKI)

Campus D3 2, Room +2.11

66123 Saarbrücken

Germany

Universität des Saarlandes (RTG)

Campus C7 4, Room 2.01

66123 Saarbrücken

Germany

About Me

I am pursuing my PhD in artificial intelligence with a focus on reinforcement learning. With my research, I aim to enhance the capabilities of neural agents in complex environments. As a member of the Research Training Group “Neuroexplicit Models of Language, Vision, and Action”, I am particularly interested in models that combine neural and explicit approaches to leverage the strengths of both. My current research is on improving exploration strategies in reinforcement learning. Effective exploration strategies can significantly increase the sample efficiency, robustness, and safety of neural agents, enabling them to learn previously intractable tasks.

Interests

Besides work, I enjoy tinkering with technology, such as customizing my system and homelab, improving my workflow and dotfiles, working on personal projects like my website. I also take photos, which I (very irregularly) post there.

To balance things out, I do a variety of sports: I go to the gym, run, and boulder. When I started my PhD, I developed an interest in learning languages. I started with Spanish and Japanese, but now I am only learning Spanish, currently at B2 level.

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Reinforcement Learning
  • Computer Graphics
  • Advanced Sampling Methods

Education

Publications (3)

I have reviewed manuscripts for AAAI 2025, HSCC 2025, ICAPS 2025, QEST 2025, HSCC 2026, ICAPS 2026, IJCAI 2026, and AAAI 2027.

2026

1 paper

PGTG: Procedurally Generated Grid-Based Traffic Gym

2026 — Reinforcement Learning Journal

PDF
@article{meyerPGTGProcedurallyGeneratedGridBased2026,
 author = {Joshua Meyer and Felix Maurice Kuntz and Verena Wolf and Jörg Hoffmann and Timo P. Gros},
 journal = {Reinforcement Learning Journal},
 pages = {},
 title = {PGTG: Procedurally Generated Grid-Based Traffic Gym},
 url = {https://rlj.cs.umass.edu/2026/papers/Paper32.pdf},
 volume = {7},
 year = {2026}
}
Code Poster

2025

1 paper

PyDSMC: Statistical Model Checking for Neural Agents Using the Gymnasium Interface

2025 — Quantitative Evaluation of Systems and Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems - Second International Joint Conference, Proceedings. International Joint Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of Systems and Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems (QEST+FORMATS-2025), August 26-28, Aarhus, Denmark

@inproceedings{grosPyDSMCStatisticalModelChecking2025,
 author = {Timo P. Gros and Arnd Hartmanns and Ivo Hoese and Joshua Meyer and Nicola J. Müller and Verena Wolf},
 booktitle = {Quantitative Evaluation of Systems and Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems - Second International Joint Conference, Proceedings. International Joint Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of Systems and Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems (QEST+FORMATS-2025), August 26-28, Aarhus, Denmark},
 doi = {10.1007/978-3-032-05792-1_8},
 editor = {Pavithra Prabhakar and Andrea Vandin},
 isbn = {978-3-032-05791-4},
 month = {10},
 pages = {134-156},
 publisher = {Springer Nature, Switzerland},
 series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science, LNCS},
 title = {PyDSMC: Statistical Model Checking for Neural Agents Using the Gymnasium Interface},
 url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-05792-1_8},
 volume = {16143},
 year = {2025}
}
DOI URL

2024

1 paper

MARS: Multi-sample Allocation through Russian roulette and Splitting

2024 — SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Conference Papers. ACM SiggraphAsia (SigAsia-2024), December 3-6, Tokyo, Japan

PDF
@inproceedings{meyerMARSMultiSampleAllocationThrough2024,
 author = {Joshua Meyer and Alexander Rath and Ömercan Yazici and Philipp Slusallek},
 booktitle = {SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Conference Papers. ACM SiggraphAsia (SigAsia-2024), December 3-6, Tokyo, Japan},
 doi = {10.1145/3680528.3687636},
 isbn = {9798400711312},
 month = {12},
 publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA},
 series = {SA '24, SA '24},
 title = {MARS: Multi-sample Allocation through Russian roulette and Splitting},
 url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3680528.3687636},
 year = {2024}
}
DOI URL

Teaching (4)

  • Special Topics in Deep Reinforcement Learning

    Assistant (English), in Summer 2026
    Seminar at Saarland University

  • Artificial Intelligence

    Tutor (English), in Winter 2023/24
    Saarland University

  • Realistic Image Synthesis

    Tutor (English), in Summer 2023
    Saarland University

  • Höhere Mathematik für Ingenieure 1

    Tutor (German), in Winter 2020/21
    Saarland University

Supervised Students (10)

If you are interested in working with me, please reach out!