Professional Experience
Google | Technical Program Manager2022–present
- Data-driven Planning: Orchestrated large-scale platform modernization of Google's continuous deployment pipeline through iterative, data-driven prioritization of feature development.
- Product-Customer Alignment: Facilitated team and customers collaboration on discovering and resolving product's pain points that led to improved customer satisfaction.
- Velocity & Risk Management: Accelerated cross-functional reviews by removing bottlenecks, increasing release cadence while maintaining rigorous safety standards for critical systems.
Hitachi Energy (ABB Power Grids) | Chief Product Security Officer & Software Processes2016–2022
- Leadership: Led company's product security as manager of managers, reporting to CTO
- Organizational Scaling: Established and scaled a new OSS and penetration test center in Krakow. Designed the organizational hierarchy, defined the headcount strategy, and recruited the Engineering Manager.
- Operational Velocity: Implemented agile processes spanning teams in US, Europe and Asia that maintained release velocity while ensuring compliance for critical infrastructure products.
ETH Zürich | Lecturer2009–2023
- Taught robotics and computer vision to 300 students per term
ABB, Group | Program Manager Software Improvements2012–2015
- R&D Efficiency: Slashed OSS component approval times from months to instantaneous by redesigning governance.
- Upleveling: Surpassed industry benchmark for company’s software development practices
ABB, Corporate Research | Group Leader & Principal Scientist2008–2012
- Research-to-Product: Managed 14 scientists, successfully bridging the gap between deep tech research and deployable industrial products
- Talent Development: Transformed PhD-level researchers in cybersecurity and distributed real-time systems into business leaders for critical infrastructure
- Recognition and Outreach: Jury member for ABB Research Award for best ETH Zurich/EPFL dissertations
ABB (early positions) | Lead Development Engineer & Senior Software Engineer2006–2008
ETH Zürich, Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems | Postdoctoral Associate2004–2006
- Incorporated manufacturing tolerances of micron-sized parts for microassembly tasks through computer vision
- Managed a main attraction for university's 150-year anniversary
- Supervised graduate students conducting research projects
University of Minnesota, Center for Distributed Robotics | Research Assistant1997–2003
- Software-Hardware Integration: Coordinated with industry partners for DARPA project. Led a student team in the orchestration of heterogeneous mobile robots, integrating diverse hardware configurations into a unified control system.
- Usability: Created remote control for miniature robots for Palm PDAs, thereby reducing cost and weight of required equipment by 90%
- Media Recognition: Project featured on The Daily Show, CNN, the BBC and Slashdot, highlighting innovations in autonomous surveillance and rescue systems.
- Feature development: Developed low-level firmware update for miniature robot for increased autonomous mobility
Volkshochschule Braunschweig | Instructor1997–1998
- Developed and taught courses for C and C++
Technische Universität Braunschweig | Research and Teaching Assistant1993–1996
- Robotics and programming languages
Education and Training
Teaching Diploma for Upper Secondary Education — University of Zurich, Switzerland
2019–present
PhD in Computer Science, minor in Electrical Engineering — University of Minnesota, USA
1998–2003
- Created world’s smallest robotic system to autonomously climb stairs by jumping
- Increased flexibility of dynamic contours by allowing topological changes for complex visual tracking tasks
- [See videos]
MS in Computer Science, minor in Electrical Engineering — University of Minnesota, USA
1996–1997
- Mobile robots, computer vision and artificial intelligence
Studies in Computer Science — Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany
1991–1996
- Robotics, distributed systems, VLSI, and minor in film studies at Braunschweig University of Art
- Projects: robotic regrasping of polyhedral objects to provide manipulator new flexibility to handle poorly placed parts; collision detection using 3D geometry toolkits to improve reliability of automated assembly tasks; distributed majority-consensus-based locking filesystem; simulation of RISC processor
Professional Training and Certifications
- Certified Global Industrial Cyber Security Professional (GICSP), 2019
- Certified SAFe Program Consultant, 2017
- Middle Management Program, 2016
- Project Leadership, Management, and Communication, 2011
- Management Development Program, 2010
- First Management Program, 2009
- Project Planning, Analysis and Controlling, 2009
- Power Speech, 2008
- Commercial and Legal Aspects of a Contract, 2006
Awards and Recognition
- Best Video Award, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2000
- First and second place awards, Sixth Annual AAAI Mobile Robot Competition, Fourteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-97), Providence, USA, 1997
- Awarded fellowships from University of Minnesota, 1997 and 2003
- Participated in multiple exchange programs in the USA and France, 1985–1997
Community Activities
- Program committee member for 8th International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS 2006)
- Elected Secretary of Computer Science Graduate Student Association, and student representative on Computing Committee, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, 2000–2002
- Web maintainer for Minnesota International Student Association, 1999–2000
- Presenter for research-related TV reports, high school students, and at science exhibitions and the Minnesota State Fair
- Reviewer for international conferences and journals, and conference session chair
Publications
Patents
- S. Obermeier, M. Wahler, T. Locher, S. Stoeter. Operating a Programmable Logic Controller, EP2898379 / US10274918, 2017
- S. Obermeier, Hadeli, M. Wahler, S. Stoeter, A. Hristova. Dynamic Configuration of an Industrial Control System, EP2810133 / CN104204973 / US9678492, 2017
Refereed Journal and Magazine Articles
- S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Kinematic Motion Model for Jumping Scout Robots. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 22(2), pp. 398–403, April 2006 [errata]
- J. Pearce, B. Powers, C. Hess, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Using Virtual Pheromones and Cameras for Dispersing a Team of Multiple Miniature Robots. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, vol. 45(4), pp. 307–321, April 2006
- S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Autonomous Stair-Climbing with Miniature Jumping Robots. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics—Part B, vol. 35(2), pp. 313–325, April 2005
- C. Dos Santos, S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, N. Papanikolopoulos. Mosaicking Images—Panoramic Imaging for Miniature Robots. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine special issue on Panoramic Robotics, vol. 11(4), pp. 62–68, December 2004
- D. Perrin, E. Kadioglu, S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Grasping and Tracking Using Constant Curvature Dynamic Contours. International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 22(10/11), pp. 855–871, October 2003
- C. McMillen, K. Stubbs, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Resource Scheduling and Load Balancing in Distributed Robotic Control Systems. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(3–4), pp. 251–259, September 2003
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos, I. Burt, T. Dahlin, M. Gini, D. Hougen, D. Krantz, F. Nageotte. Sharing Control. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, vol. 9(4), pp. 41–48, December 2002
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. Performance of a Distributed Robotic System Using Shared Communications Channels. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation special issue on Advances in Multirobot Systems, vol. 18(5), pp. 713–727, October 2002
- S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, K. Stubbs, C. McMillen, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. A Robot Team for Surveillance Tasks: Design and Architecture. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40/2–3, pp. 173–183, August 2002
- P. Rybski, N. Papanikolopoulos, S. Stoeter, D. Krantz, K. Yesin, M. Gini, R. Voyles, D. Hougen, B. Nelson, M. Erickson. Rangers and Scouts: A Team of Robots for Reconnaissance and Surveillance. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, pp. 14–24, December 2000
Refereed Conference Proceedings
- S. Stoeter, J. Hudepohl, F. Ekdahl, B. Robinson. Enabling Software Excellence at a Hardware Company. SEI SATURN 2013, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, April/May 2013
- M. Oriol, M. Wahler, R. Steiger, S. Stoeter, E. Vardar, H. Koziolek, A. Kumar. FASA: A Scalable Software Framework for Distributed Control Systems. Proceedings of the ISARCS 2012 3rd International ACM Sigsoft Symposium on Architecting Critical Systems Federated with CompArch 2012, Bertinoro, Italy, June 2012
- S. Stoeter, M. Probst, B. Nelson, M. Abásolo Iranzo. Improving Tracking Precision for Microassembly (poster). Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Orlando, Florida, USA, May 2006
- S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Closed Dynamic Contour Models that Split and Merge. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, vol. 4, pp. 3883–3888, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, April/May 2004
- S. Stoeter, I. Burt, N. Papanikolopoulos. Scout Robot Motion Model. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Taipei, Taiwan, September 2003
- B. Kratochvil, I. Burt, A. Drenner, D. Goerke, B. Jackson, C. McMillen, C. Olson, N. Papanikolopoulos, A. Pfeifer, S. Stoeter, K. Stubbs, D. Waletzko. Heterogeneous Implementation of an Adaptive Robotic Sensing Team. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Taipei, Taiwan, September 2003
- J. Pearce, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Dispersion Behaviors for a Team of Multiple Miniature Robots. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Taipei, Taiwan, September 2003
- S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Autonomous Stair-Hopping with Scout Robots. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Lausanne, Switzerland, September/October 2002
- P. Rößler, S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, N. Papanikolopoulos. Visual Servoing of a Miniature Robot Toward a Marked Target. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Digital Signal Processing, Santorini, Greece, July 2002
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. A Distributed Surveillance Task using Multiple Miniature Robots. First International Conference on Autonomous and Multi-Agent Systems, pp. 1393–1394, Bologna, Italy, July 2002
- D. Perrin, E. Kadioglu, S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Localization of Miniature Mobile Robots Using Constant Curvature Dynamic Contours. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Washington, D.C., USA, May 2002
- C. McMillen, K. Stubbs, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Resource Scheduling and Load Balancing in Distributed Robotic Control Systems. Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems, pp. 223–230, Marina del Rey, California, USA, March 2002
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. Effects of Limited Bandwidth Communications Channels of the Control of Multiple Robots. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, pp. 369–374, Maui, Hawaii, USA, October/November 2001
- P. Rybski, I. Burt, T. Dahlin, M. Gini, D. Hougen, D. Krantz, F. Nageotte, N. Papanikolopoulos, S. Stoeter. System Architecture for Versatile Autonomous and Teleoperated Control of Multiple Miniature Robots. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Seoul, Korea, May 2001
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. Dynamic Scheduling of a Fixed Bandwidth Communications Channel for Controlling Multiple Robots (poster). Proceedings of the 5th Autonomous Agents 2001, pp. 153–154, Montreal, Canada, May 2001
- S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. Verteilte Steuerung heterogener mobiler Roboter. Autonome Mobile Systeme, pp. 270–277, Karlsruhe, Germany, November 2000 [errata]
- D. Hougen, M. Erickson, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Autonomous Mobile Robots and Distributed Exploratory Missions. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, October 2000
- S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, M. Erickson, M. Gini, D. Krantz, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos, M. Wyman. A Robot Team for Exploration and Surveillance: Design and Architecture. Intelligent Autonomous Systems, pp. 767–774, Venice, Italy, July 2000
- S. Stoeter, F. Le Mauff, N. Papanikolopoulos. Real-time Door Detection in Cluttered Environments. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Control, pp. 187–192, Rio, Greece, July 2000
- N. Papanikolopoulos, S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, M. Gini, D. Hougen, M. Erickson. Experiments with a Team of Miniature Robots. Proceedings of the IEEE Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation, Rio, Greece, July 2000
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Erickson, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. A Team of Robotic Agents for Surveillance. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Autonomous Agents, pp. 9–16, Barcelona, Spain, June 2000
- D. Hougen, S. Benjaafar, J. Bonney, J. Budenske, M. Dvorak, M. Gini, H. French, D. Krantz, P. Li, F. Malver, B. Nelson, N. Papanikolopoulos, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, R. Voyles, K. Yesin. A Miniature Robotic System for Reconnaissance and Surveillance. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 501–507, San Francisco, California, USA, April 2000
- H. Mosemann, T. Bierwirth, F. Wahl, S. Stoeter. Generating Polyhedral Convex Cones from Contact Graphs for the Identification of Assembly Process States. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, pp. 744–749, San Francisco, California, USA, April 2000
- S. Stoeter, S. Voss, N. Papanikolopoulos, H. Mosemann. Planning of Regrasp Operations. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Detroit, Michigan, USA, May 1999
Refereed Workshop Proceedings
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Programming and Controlling the Operations of a Team of Miniature Robots. Proceedings from the 2002 NRL Workshop on Multi-Robot Systems, Alan C. Schultz and Lynne E. Parker (eds.), Multi-Robot Systems: From Swarms to Intelligent Automata, pp. 65–72, Washington, D.C., USA, March 2002
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. Performance of a Distributed Robotic System Using Shared Communications Channels. Proceedings of SPIE Photonics Boston, pp. 84–95, Newton, Massachusetts, USA, October/November 2001
- S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos, P. Rybski, D. Krantz, K. Yesin, M. Gini, D. Hougen, F. Nageotte, B. Nelson. User Interfaces for a Robotic Distributed System. Proceedings of the Second Biomorphic Explorers Workshop: Bio-Inspired Engineering of Exploration Systems, December 2000
- D. Hougen, S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, M. Erickson, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Behavioral Decomposition of Robotic Exploratory Missions. International Conference for Smart Systems and Robotics for Medicine and Space Applications, Houston, Texas, USA, September 2000
- D. Hougen, J. Bonney, J. Budenske, M. Dvorak, M. Gini, D. Krantz, F. Malver, B. Nelson, N. Papanikolopoulos, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, R. Voyles, K. Yesin. Reconfigurable Robots for Distributed Robotics. Government Microcircuit Applications conference, Anaheim, California, USA, March 2000
Refereed Videos
- B. Kratochvil, I. Burt, T. Dahlin, A. Drenner, M. Gini, D. Hougen, C. McMillen, B. Nelson, N. Papanikolopoulos, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, K. Stubbs, D. Waletzko, K. Yesin. A New Generation of Scout Robots with Multiple Mobility Modes. Video proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Washington, D.C., USA, May 2002
- B. Kratochvil, I. Burt, T. Dahlin, A. Drenner, M. Gini, C. McMillen, B. Nelson, N. Papanikolopoulos, P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, K. Stubbs, D. Waletzko, K. Yesin. A New Generation of Scout Robots with Enhanced Sensing and Mobility. Video proceedings of the SPIE International Symposium on Aerospace/Defense Sensing, Simulation, and Controls, Orlando, Florida, USA, April 2002
- P. Rybski, S. Benjaafar, J. Budenske, M. Dvorak, M. Gini, D. Hougen, D. Krantz, P. Li, F. Malver, B. Nelson, N. Papanikolopoulos, S. Stoeter, R. Voyles, K. Yesin. A Robotic Reconnaissance and Surveillance Team. Video proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, San Francisco, California, USA, April 2000
Invited Book Chapters
- M. Bauer, S. Stoeter. Enterprise Connectivity. Collaborative Process Automation Systems, M. Hollender (ed.), ISA, September 2009
Technical Reports
- S. Stoeter, N. Papanikolopoulos. Closed Dynamic Contours that Split and Merge. Technical Report 03‑008, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, February 2003
- P. Rößler, S. Stoeter, P. Rybski, N. Papanikolopoulos. Visual Servoing of a Miniature Robot Toward a Marked Target. Technical Report 02‑005, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, January 2002
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, D. Hougen, N. Papanikolopoulos. Performance of a Distributed Robotic System Using Shared Communications Channels. Technical Report 01‑031, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, July 2001
Other Publications
- M. Wahler, S. Stoeter, M. Oriol, M. Naedele, A. Kumar. A Parallel Future for Real-time Control. ABB Review, Zurich, Switzerland, no. 3/2012, pp. 12–15, September 2012
- S. Obermeier, S. Stoeter, R. Schierholz, M. Braendle. Cyber Security. ABB Review, Zurich, Switzerland, no. 3/2012, pp. 64–69, September 2012
- S. Stoeter, D. Milenovic. Data, not Paper. ABB Review, Zurich, Switzerland, no. 1/2009, pp. 15–19, March 2009
- S. Stoeter. Ein unerfüllter Menschheitstraum. CHemie plus — Schweizer Fachzeitschrift der Chemieberufe, Solothurn, Switzerland, no. 3, pp. 62–65, 2005
- S. Stoeter. Ein unerfüllter Menschheitstraum. Bulletin — Magazin der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, no. 296, pp. 28–31, January 2005
- S. Stoeter. Vision-based Control of Miniature Jumping Scout Robots. PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, December 2003 [errata]
- P. Rybski, I. Burt, A. Drenner, B. Kratochvil, C. McMillen, S. Stoeter, K. Stubbs, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Evaluation of the Scout Robot for Urban Search and Rescue. Proceedings of the AAAI 2001 Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition Workshop, Seattle, Washington, USA, August 2001
- P. Rybski, D. Hougen, S. Stoeter, M. Gini, N. Papanikolopoulos. Control of Multiple Small Surveillance Robots at AAAI 2000. Proceedings of the AAAI 2000 Mobile Robot Competition and Exhibition Workshop, Austin, Texas, USA, August 2000
- S. Stöter. Robotlethen. c't, no. 10/97, p. 94, Hanover, Germany, September 1997
- P. Rybski, S. Stoeter, C. Wyman, M. Gini. A Cooperative Multi-Robot Approach to the Mapping and Exploration of Mars. Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 798–799, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, July 1997