Below is a list of my publications, with links to papers, supplements, preprints, and code where available. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about my research.
Published Papers
Creating Multi-Level Skill Hierarchies in Reinforcement Learning (NeurIPS 2023)
· Evans, J.B. and Şimşek, Ö. (2023). "Creating Multi-Level Skill Hierarchies in Reinforcement Learning". Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 36, pp.48472-48484.
We propose a novel characterisation of a multi-level skill hierarchy for reinforcement learning. Our approach uses modularity maximisation to expose the structure of the agent's interaction with its environment at multiple levels of abstraction.
Preprints
Learning The Minimum Action Distance
· Steccanella, L., Evans, J.B., Şimşek, Ö., and Jonsson, A. (2025). "Learning the Minimum Action Distance". arXiv preprint:2506.09276.
We propose a novel method for learning the minimum action distance in reinforcement learning. Our approach uses quasimetrics to model asymmetric distances in directed environments, leading to more accurate estimates that lead to improved performance on downstream tasks.