Václav Knapp
Undergraduate, Czech Technical University Student researcher, UC Berkeley & UPenn
I am a first-year undergraduate student at Czech Technical University, studying computer science, physics, and robotics. My research and personal interests center on artificial intelligence (particularly computer vision) and cognitive science.
As an external student researcher at Berkeley AI Research (UC Berkeley), I work under the guidance of Neerja Thakkar and Professor Jitendra Malik. As a visiting student researcher at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), I work with Professor Tyler Bonnen. Across both, my research focuses on in-context learning, generalization, memory systems, and representation learning.
I have also collaborated with Matyas Bohacek on a range of AI projects, including synthetic data generation for machine learning models and AI applications for sign language.
Before moving into AI, I conducted research in physics, focusing on quantum computing and optics. I was mentored by Lukas Slodicka at Palacký University and by Julian Schmidt at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and ETH Zurich, where my work centered on ion trap technologies.
Outside of research, I enjoy sports and thinking about the philosophy of science and the nature of consciousness.
Selected Publications
See Google Scholar for the full list.
Can Pose Transfer Models Generate Realistic Human Motion?
IEEE Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition
Media Coverage
Articles and interviews about my work. Most are in Czech; English versions use Google Translate.
He started taking courses at world universities in elementary school. At 17, he's exploring how to replicate human consciousness with artificial intelligence
Feature article about my work for CzechCrunch, a widely read Czech technology magazine.
Robots will walk among us in two years, says young Czech scientist
Article about me and my work for iDNES.cz, the most popular Czech online and print news outlet.
He's researching AI, working with Berkeley. Václav Knapp wants to program consciousness at 17
Article about me and my work for the Czech edition of WIRED.
Forbes 30 Under 30 (Czech Republic, 2026)
Profile in the 2026 Czech Forbes 30 Under 30 list. It follows my path from ion trap research at Palacký University and computer vision projects at CTU to AI and neuroscience research with UC Berkeley, presenting at ACM ASSETS as its youngest ever participant, and synthetic data research at CVPR 2025.
Václav Knapp on the Neuron Foundation internship at Berkeley
Interview with Monika Vondráková, director of the Neuron Foundation (Nadace Neuron, a Czech foundation supporting excellent science), about my two-month Neuron-supported research stay at UC Berkeley while still in high school, and why contacts in science matter as much as the research itself.
Researching AI at Berkeley at eighteen: I want to build artificial brain centres. I'm not trying to show off
Video interview (in Czech) for DVTV, one of the most watched Czech online interview shows, March 2026. We talk about my path into AI research, collaborating remotely with UC Berkeley since the age of seventeen, and my goal of building artificial brain regions as a way to understand consciousness.