Michael Hintermüller

Prof. Michael Hintermüller is the Director of the Weierstrass Institute (WIAS) and holds a professorship in Applied Mathematics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He serves as Founding Coordinator of BR50, Spokesperson of the Mathematical Research Data Initiative (MaRDI), and Board Member of the MATH+ Cluster of Excellence. His research focuses on nonsmooth optimization, PDE-constrained control, mathematical image processing, and quasi-variational inequalities.

• Leadership Roles: Director of WIAS; Founding Coordinator of BR50; Spokesperson of MaRDI; Board Member of MATH+
• Key Research Areas: Mathematical image processing, optimization under uncertainty, PDE-constrained optimization, shape/topology optimization, learning-informed constraints

Recent Applications: Image deblurring/denoising/demodulation, energy network modeling, gas dynamics on pipeline networks, thermoforming simulations, strained photonic device design. His work combines analytical rigor with numerical methods for inverse problems, including adaptive regularization and physics-informed neural networks.

Scientific Leadership: Active in mathematical modeling for biomedical imaging (e.g., quantitative MRI) and industrial applications (e.g., semiconductor design, gas flow optimization). Develops novel algorithms for nonsmooth PDE systems and contributes to the theoretical foundations of quasi-variational inequalities and generalized Nash equilibrium problems.