James Urquhart Allingham is a Research Scientist at Google DeepMind , working on the Gemini project. He completed his PhD in the Machine Learning Group at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of José Miguel Hernández-Lobato, with funding from EPSRC, the Michael E. Fisher Studentship in Machine Learning, and the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship. He was also part of the ELLIS PhD program, advised by Eric Nalisnick at AMLab UvA. Current affiliation: Google DeepMind (Research Scientist) PhD: University of Cambridge (Machine Learning Group) Academic networks: ELLIS PhD program, Darwin College His research focuses on the intersection of Bayesian deep learning and probabilistic methods in deep learning. Key areas include deep generative models , zero-shot classification , prompt engineering , Monte Carlo gradient estimation , and applications to sustainability and climate change . His work has explored energy-based models , neural architecture search , and equivariance in convolutional networks . Selected scientific awards and grants include the Michael E. Fisher Studentship , Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship , and MPhil in Advanced Computer Science with Distinction . He has collaborated with institutions such as the Amsterdam Machine Learning Group (AMLAB) and University of the Witwatersrand .
Ana Filipa Sequeira is a researcher affiliated with INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal, and the University of Porto. Her work spans biometrics, fairness in AI, and explainable artificial intelligence. She has contributed to advancements in face recognition, synthetic data applications, and bias mitigation through techniques like knowledge distillation and model compression. Institution: INESC TEC (Porto, Portugal) Research Themes: Face recognition, fairness, explainability, synthetic data, biometric security Her recent publications focus on addressing demographic biases in face recognition systems, developing privacy-preserving explainable methods, and evaluating synthetic data's impact. She collaborates extensively with researchers like Pedro C. Neto, Jaime S. Cardoso, and Naser Damer. Sequeira has participated in organizing and analyzing competitions such as FRCSyn, BIOSIG, and SYN-MAD, emphasizing robust evaluation frameworks. Her work intersects technical innovation with ethical considerations, advocating for responsible AI applications in biometrics.
Dr. Gaël Kermarrec is a researcher at the Boundary Layer Meteorology Group , part of the Institute of Meteorology and Climatology within the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Leibniz University Hannover . His work focuses on atmospheric turbulence, GNSS applications, and remote sensing for environmental monitoring. Boundary layer meteorology Turbulence theory GNSS signal processing Terrestrial laser scanning Climate change impacts Geodetic time series analysis His research integrates advanced mathematical models like LR B-splines and Matérn covariance with large eddy simulations to study: Atmospheric turbulence effects on optical/GNSS signals Hydrospheric mass loading Deformation analysis of terrain/port infrastructure Climatic sea-level changes Machine learning for remote sensing The 15 most recent articles (2025-2023) demonstrate his focus on: GNSS-based turbulence detection AI-enhanced climate mapping Advanced surface approximation techniques Multi-sensor data fusion Stochastic modeling of geodetic observations Environmental impacts on optical measurements He has developed tools like the Klimascanner QGIS plugin for urban climate resilience and contributes to: Understanding atmospheric scale lengths Improving TLS/GNSS deformation monitoring Analyzing hydrospheric changes Wavefront modeling Ionospheric corrections
Kede Ma is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK). He received his B.E. from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2012, and MASc and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Waterloo in 2014 and 2017, respectively. From 2018 to 2019, he was a Research Associate with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and New York University. Prof. Ma has been named to the Highly Cited Researchers list by Clarivate Analytics in 2024 and currently serves on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, and IEEE Signal Processing Letters. Prof. Ma leads the Multimedia Analytics (MA) Laboratory, an interdisciplinary research group focused on computational vision, computational modeling of human visual perception, perceptual multimedia signal processing, quality assessment, and multimedia forensics. His research spans computational photography, high dynamic range imaging and rendering, omnidirectional video analysis, camera processing pipeline design, and artificial intelligence safety in multimedia systems. His work integrates machine learning techniques including reinforcement learning, generative modeling, self-supervised learning, and continual learning for multimedia signal processing applications. His recent publications demonstrate a strong focus on image quality assessment, deep learning for multimedia processing, and multimedia forensics. His work bridges theoretical computer vision principles with practical applications in multimedia systems. The research trends show increasing integration of foundation models with specialized multimedia processing tasks, particularly in quality assessment and security applications. Highly Cited Researchers list by Clarivate Analytics (2024) Best Paper Award at IEEE International Conference on Virtual Reality and Visualization (2021) Best Paper Runner-Up at International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence Workshop (2021) Top 10% Award at IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (2015) Finalist for the Governor General's Gold Medal, University of Waterloo (2017) Spotlight presentation at NeurIPS (2022) Highlight paper at ICCV (2025) Oral presentation at ICLR (2025) Prof. Ma advises numerous PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in the MA Laboratory. His research is supported by various grants enabling work in multimedia analytics, image processing, and computer vision. The laboratory maintains active collaborations with researchers at institutions including SUSTech, ZJU, and HIT. Current projects focus on advancing image quality assessment methodologies, developing more robust deep learning techniques for multimedia forensics, and exploring new approaches to HDR imaging and omnidirectional video processing. The Multimedia Analytics Laboratory maintains a strong focus on both theoretical foundations and practical applications of multimedia processing. Current research directions include integrating large language models with image quality assessment, developing more robust deepfake detection methods, and advancing techniques for continual learning in multimedia applications. The lab emphasizes rigorous evaluation methodologies and maintains multiple datasets for multimedia quality assessment research.
Holger Dette is a Professor and Chair Holder of Stochastics (specializing in Statistics) at the Faculty of Mathematics, Ruhr University Bochum. He leads the prominent Group Dette within the Institute of Statistics, overseeing a team of researchers, doctoral students, and administrative staff including Birgit Tormöhlen as team assistant. His research group is deeply integrated within the university's mathematical ecosystem, collaborating with other research groups across algebra, analysis, numerics, and topology. Dette's research spans mathematical statistics with strong applications in real-world problems. His primary interests include optimal experimental design, time series analysis, functional data, change point problems, nonparametric regression, biostatistics, special functions, goodness-of-fit tests, and random matrices . His work bridges theoretical statistics with practical applications, particularly evident in his collaborations with pharmaceutical giants Novartis and Bayer AG in biostatistics, as well as Quasol, a spin-off company from his statistics institute. His recent publications (2024-2025) reveal a research program increasingly focused on high-dimensional and functional data analysis, privacy-preserving statistics, and novel methodological approaches to longstanding statistical problems. Dette's work shows strong interdisciplinary connections, particularly with biomechanics (analyzing joint angles during fatigue phases) and data science (addressing challenges in the era of big data). His research group is actively involved in multiple DFG-funded projects including the newly established 'Small Data' collaborative research center (Sonderforschungsbereich 1597) and the Spatio-temporal Statistics for the Transition of Energy and Transport (Transregio 391). Dette has received significant recognition including the prestigious Humboldt Research Award . His paper 'With Great Power Come Great Side Channels: Statistical Timing Side-Channel Analyses with Bounded Type-1 Errors' achieved second place at the CSAW'24 Applied Research Competition MENA. His research group has also secured multiple significant funding awards from the German Research Foundation (DFG). As an advisor, Dette supervises numerous doctoral and master's students including Pascal Quanz, Marius Kroll, and Carina Graw. His group offers statistical consulting services for scientists and students across bachelor's, master's, and doctoral phases. The group maintains strong industrial partnerships, particularly in biostatistics applications, demonstrating Dette's commitment to translating theoretical statistics into practical solutions for real-world challenges.
Prof. Gabriele Schrag holds the Professorship of Microsensors and Actuators at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), within the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology. Her research focuses on MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), including microsensors, actuators, and their applications in acoustics, microfluidics, and bioengineering. She has pioneered work in virtual prototyping for system-level modeling to enhance device robustness and performance. Education: PhD (summa cum laude) from TUM on 'Modeling coupled effects in microsystems' Habilitation in sensor systems technology (2018) Acting head of the Chair of Technical Electrophysics (2018-2023) Research emphasizes acoustic MEMS transducers , electrohydrodynamic printing , and physics-based modeling . Notable projects include developing piezoelectric MEMS microphones with corrugated membranes and integrated micropump systems. Awards include the Bavarian Prize for Good Teaching (2021) and Eurosensors Fellow Award (2019). Her work bridges virtual prototyping with real-world applications , addressing challenges in miniaturization, energy efficiency, and sensor integration for medical and industrial systems.
Sebastian Stich is a tenured faculty member at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security , where he leads research in Trustworthy Information Processing . He has been a tenure-track faculty since 2021 and was promoted to tenured professor in 2025. He is also a member of the European Lab for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) . Education: PhD in Computer Science, ETH Zurich (2010–2014) MSc and BSc in Mathematics, ETH Zurich (2005–2010) Research Scientist, EPFL (2016–2021) Research at CORE/ICTEAM, UCLouvain (2014–2016) His research centers on optimization for machine learning , with a focus on federated, decentralized, and distributed learning . He investigates methods for communication efficiency , adaptive stochastic optimization , privacy-preserving training , and generalization theory . His work bridges theoretical guarantees with practical scalability. His recent publications (2023–2025) consistently address gradient compression , error feedback , local updates , and decentralized consensus , demonstrating a strong trend toward making distributed learning more efficient, robust, and scalable—especially under heterogeneous data and limited bandwidth. Scientific Awards: ERC Consolidator Grant 2024 (CollectiveMinds) Google Research Scholar Award (2023) Meta Privacy-Enhancing Technologies Research Award (2022) Sebastian Stich actively advises PhD students and postdocs, including Anton Rodomanov , Xiaowen Jiang , and Yuan Gao . He has secured competitive grants such as the ERC CollectiveMinds project, supporting collaborative research on scalable federated learning. He teaches advanced courses at Saarland University and serves as an area chair for NeurIPS, ICML, and ICLR. He leads a research group at CISPA focused on trustworthy and efficient machine learning systems , contributing to both foundational theory and real-world applications in privacy and security.
Haoyi Xiong is an active academic researcher in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science, with extensive publications in top-tier journals and conferences including IEEE TPAMI, NeurIPS, ICML, KDD, and AAAI. His work spans explainable AI, graph neural networks, diffusion models, remote sensing, and large language models. Research Interests: Explainable AI (XAI) and model interpretability Graph Neural Networks and contrastive learning Diffusion models and generative AI Medical and remote sensing image analysis Large language models and autonomous agents Learning to rank and web search His recent publications (2023–2025) show a strong trend toward self-supervised learning , model robustness , and integration of LLMs with structured data and knowledge graphs . He frequently collaborates with researchers from major tech and academic institutions. Scientific Awards: No explicit awards mentioned in the provided text. Advising and Grants: While no direct mention of students or grants, his role as a senior author on numerous papers suggests he advises graduate students and likely leads funded research projects in machine learning and AI. His work on frameworks like COLTR , GS2P , and MUSCLE indicates leadership in developing scalable AI systems. Labs and Teams: Though not explicitly stated, his frequent collaboration with Jiang Bian, Dejing Dou, and Dawei Yin suggests affiliation with a well-established AI research lab or industry-academia partnership focused on data mining, intelligent systems, and large-scale learning.
Thorsten Schmidt is Professor of Mathematical Stochastics at the University of Freiburg, succeeding Prof. Ernst Eberlein in the summer semester of 2015. He also serves as Senior Financial Engineer at MathFinance. Previously, he held professorships at Chemnitz University of Technology (2008-2015), Technical University Munich (2008), and University of Leipzig (2004 onwards). From 2017-2019, he was a Research Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) in a joint research group with the University of Strasbourg and USIAS on the topic of Linking Finance and Insurance. His research focuses primarily on financial and actuarial mathematics, stochastic processes, and statistics, with recent work on machine learning methods and their applications in financial mathematics and AI regulation. In Freiburg, his goal with his young team is to tackle complex challenges with improved mathematical models and apply these methodologies to various fields. Key Research Areas: Financial mathematics and credit risks Pricing and hedging of derivative financial products Statistics of stochastic processes Energy markets and nonlinear filter theory Machine learning applications in finance and insurance His recent publications show a strong trend toward integrating machine learning with traditional mathematical finance, particularly in risk management, insurance-finance arbitrage, and robust financial modeling. His work increasingly addresses ethical considerations in AI applications within finance, reflecting his broader interest in responsible AI development. Notable Awards: IDA Award Finance (2015) FRIAS-USIAS Research Fellow (2017/2018) IDA Award Machine Learning and AI (2020) MAPFRE Research Grant (2020) Luis Bachelier Fellow (2021) As Editor-in-Chief of Statistics and Risk Modeling and Associate Editor for Mathematical Finance and International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance, Schmidt plays a significant role in academic publishing. He leads the CRC 'Small Data' research center with Harald Binder, focusing on medical problems where disease progression must be estimated with few data points per patient. His LeanAI project, funded by the Vector Foundation, explores the connection between machine learning and theorem-proving software LEAN, aiming to develop AI that can translate between mathematics and formal proof systems. His laboratory work centers around the application of stochastic methods combined with machine learning to solve problems in finance and insurance where data is limited ('Small Data' initiative), with significant funding from DFG (€12 million for CRC Small Data) and the Carl Zeiss Foundation.
Prof. Dr. René Orth is a Professor at the University of Freiburg, leading the Modelling of Biogeochemical Systems group. He focuses on land-atmosphere interactions, climate change impacts on vegetation and water systems, and Earth system modeling, with a particular emphasis on soil moisture-vegetation-climate feedbacks and extreme weather events. Education: MSc and BSc in Atmospheric and Climate Science from ETH Zurich (2010), BSc in Earth Science (2008), Erasmus exchange at University of Leeds. His research integrates biophysical and societal perspectives to improve climate projections and hydroclimatic forecasts. Key projects include the EU H2020 MYRIAD multi-hazard framework and the DFG Emmy Noether Group on Hydrology-Biosphere-Climate Interactions. His publications highlight vegetation responses to climate change, drought impacts, and the robustness of modeling approaches. He has supervised over 15 BSc, MSc, and PhD theses and actively reviews manuscripts and proposals for leading journals and funding agencies. Scientific awards include the ETH Excellence Scholarship, SNF Advanced Postdoc Mobility Grant, and DFG Emmy Noether Group Grant. René Orth is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (Jena), Die Junge Akademie, and the institute's graduate school (IMPRS-gBGC), contributing to science-policy interfaces and advancing climate science through interdisciplinary research.
Christian Engwer is a full Professor at the University of Muenster in the Institute for Applied Mathematics, specializing in Analysis and Numerics. He leads the Engwer Group focused on Applications of Partial Differential Equations and is actively involved in the Cells in Motion initiative as a supervisor in the CiM-IMPRS Graduate Programme. His research centers on developing numerical methods for partial differential equations, particularly addressing challenges in complex geometries and multi-physics applications. He specializes in Unfitted Discontinuous Galerkin methods, which allow simulations on complex geometries without requiring domain-fitted meshes. His work spans porous media modeling, biological systems, and bioelectromagnetism applications, with significant contributions to EEG/MEG forward modeling in neuroscience. Analysis of his recent publications reveals a strong focus on model order reduction techniques, stabilized numerical schemes for cut-cell meshes, and applications in bioelectromagnetism. His work demonstrates a consistent trajectory toward developing robust, efficient numerical methods applicable to real-world problems in medical imaging and biological modeling, with increasing emphasis on high-performance computing implementations. Professor Engwer actively supervises doctoral students, with recent completions including Lukas Renelt (2025), Michael Wenske (2021), and Maria Carla Piastra (2019), among others working on topics related to numerical methods and biomedical applications. He leads several major research projects including BrainStorm: Highly Extensible Software for Advanced Electrophysiology and MEG/EEG Imaging (NIH-funded since 2019), multiple EXC 2044 Cluster of Excellence projects through 2025, and the InterKI interdisciplinary teaching program on machine learning and artificial intelligence. His group develops several important software packages including DUNE (Distributed and Unified Numerics Environment), duneuro (for bioelectromagnetism applications), and TPMC (Topology Preserving Marching Cubes). These tools support research in numerical methods and their applications to complex scientific problems.
Andrea Iannelli is a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at the Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control (IST) , University of Stuttgart, Germany. He also serves as a faculty member of the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems (IMPRS-IS) and participates in the Cluster of Excellence Data-Integrated Simulation Science (SimTech) . His research focuses on reconciling model-based and data-driven approaches for robust and adaptive control of uncertain dynamical systems. Ph.D. : Control and Dynamical Systems, University of Bristol (UK), 2019 Postdoctoral Researcher : ETH Zürich (Switzerland), 2019–2022 Harnessing the intersection of control theory, optimization, and machine learning , Iannelli’s work addresses data-driven modeling, uncertainty quantification, and robust control with applications in energy systems, intelligent transportation, and industry 4.0 . His recent publications highlight trends in LPV frameworks, online convex optimization, and hybrid control systems , emphasizing safety and efficiency. He contributes to the academic community as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control and as a member of international conference IPCs. His group, Trustworthy Autonomy for Smart Adaptive Systems (TASAS) , mentors PhD students in projects spanning adaptive control, uncertainty quantification, and reinforcement learning .
Paul R. Genssler is a Dr.-Ing. researcher at the Chair of AI Processor Design (AI-Pro) within the Technical University of Munich (TUM), actively advancing hardware solutions for artificial intelligence under Prof. Hussam Amrouch. His work bridges computer engineering and emerging technologies, focusing on overcoming fundamental limitations in conventional computing architectures through brain-inspired paradigms. His research spans critical domains in next-generation computing: Hyperdimensional Computing for robust pattern recognition and bioinformatics applications Neuromorphic and In-Memory Computing architectures for energy efficiency Reliability engineering for emerging memory technologies (FeFET, etc.) Quantum computing support systems including cryogenic embedded electronics Machine learning-driven transistor aging prediction and mitigation Analysis of his 15 most recent publications (2023-2024) reveals a dominant trend toward hyperdimensional computing as a unifying framework for addressing reliability challenges in emerging technologies. His work consistently integrates in-memory computing techniques to bypass von Neumann bottlenecks while targeting real-world applications like genome matching and unsupervised learning. A significant portion focuses on error-resilient implementations for unreliable nanoscale devices, demonstrating exceptional cross-stack expertise from transistor physics to algorithm design. As a core member of TUM's AI Processor Design group affiliated with the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), Genssler collaborates extensively on projects spanning cryogenic quantum control systems, FPGA-based AI resilience, and monolithic 3D integration. The team operates at the intersection of semiconductor physics, computer architecture, and machine learning, with strong industry connections evident through publications at DATE, ASP-DAC, and ICCAD.
Kristin Y. Pettersen is a Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in the Department of Engineering Cybernetics, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. She holds a PhD and MSc in Engineering Cybernetics from NTNU and serves as an Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). She co-founded and led Eelume AS as its first CEO. PhD in Engineering Cybernetics, NTNU MSc in Engineering Cybernetics, NTNU Her research focuses on nonlinear control theory, motion control of mechanical systems, and marine robotics. Key areas include autonomous vehicles, underactuated systems, and cooperative control. Her recent work involves snake robotics, vehicle-manipulator systems, and safety-critical control algorithms. Her publications demonstrate trends in marine robotics , nonlinear control systems , autonomous navigation , formation control , and adaptive algorithms . Emerging topics include energy-shaping control , extremum-seeking optimization , and task-priority frameworks for complex robotic systems. 2025: Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (DNVA) 2020: ERC Advanced Grant 2017: IEEE Fellow 2016-2021: Board member, Eelume AS 2013-2023: Key scientist, NTNU AMOS She has supervised 30 PhD graduates and currently mentors 16 PhD candidates. Her grants include ERC PoC UR4energy (€150k), ERC AdG CRÈME (€2.5M), and CAROS (NOK 45M) for subsea autonomy. She leads teams at NTNU's Applied Underwater Robotics Laboratory and contributes to the Cluster of Excellence IntCDC.
Prof. Dr. Erik Rodner is a faculty member at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW Berlin), where he serves as a Professor for Machine Learning and Data Science. He also contributes to the School of Engineering Sciences - Technology and Life. His research spans computer vision, machine learning, and biomedical applications, with a focus on learning with limited data, robust visual recognition models, and medical image analysis. He has developed innovative methods for medical diagnostics, industrial classification, and anomaly detection. Recent publications (2025-2016) highlight his expertise in visual in-context learning, semi-weakly segmentation, and active learning frameworks. He has collaborated with institutions such as ZEISS Group, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and UC Berkeley. Scientific Awards: Award for Excellent Teaching (2023)
