Prof. Niki Kilbertus is an Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in the Department of Informatics, and Group Leader at Helmholtz AI. His research focuses on causal machine learning, ethical AI systems, and applications in healthcare, climate science, and dynamical systems. He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge (2020) and has held positions at DeepMind, Google, and Amazon during his studies. His research interests include causal discovery, fairness in AI, counterfactual reasoning, and integrating physics-based constraints into neural networks. Key contributions include foundational work on fair machine learning (e.g., avoiding discrimination through causal models) and developing methods for causal inference in complex systems like healthcare and climate modeling. Recent work emphasizes generative models for causal interventions, robust treatment effect estimation, and physically consistent neural differential equations. He leads a large interdisciplinary group with over 20 students and postdocs working on projects funded by Helmholtz Association, ERC, and industry collaborations. Notable awards include the Leopoldina Prize for Young Scientists (2024) and membership in the Junge Akademie. His lab maintains active partnerships with ELLIS, MCML, and the Zuse Institute Berlin.
Andrea Tagliasacchi is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University (SFU), where he holds the Visual Computing Research Chair. He is also a part-time (20%) Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind in Toronto and holds an associate professor (status only) appointment in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Education: PhD in Computing Science – Simon Fraser University (NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Fellow) Postdoctoral Research – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) MSc in Computer Science – Politecnico di Milano (Gold Medalist) His research lies at the intersection of computer vision, computer graphics, and machine learning, with a focus on 3D visual perception. Key areas include neural radiance fields (NeRF), 3D Gaussian splatting, inverse rendering, and geometric deep learning, with applications in robotics, augmented reality, and autonomous systems. His work emphasizes robust and efficient scene understanding and reconstruction from visual data. His recent publications, appearing in top venues like CVPR, SIGGRAPH, NeurIPS, and ECCV, demonstrate a strong emphasis on neural fields, 3D reconstruction, and generative modeling. Trends include improving rendering efficiency, enhancing robustness to noise and distractors, and enabling controllable and 3D-aware generation. His group has made significant contributions to Gaussian splatting, NeRF optimization, and diffusion-based 3D/4D synthesis. Scientific Awards: 2024 CVPR Best Paper Award (Honorable Mention) 2020 CVPR Best Student Paper Award 2015 SGP Best Paper Award NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship MITACS Best Paper Award (SIGGRAPH Asia 2009) NSF Best Poster Award (SGP 2012) He has advised numerous PhD and MSc students, many of whom are now researchers at leading institutions and companies. His research has been supported through collaborations with Google, Intel, and academic partners. He serves the community as a Senior Area Chair for CVPR 2025, Associate Editor for IEEE TPAMI (2024–2026), Guest Editor for IEEE TPAMI on 3D GenAI, and Program Chair for 3DV 2024. He leads a vibrant research lab at SFU focused on pushing the boundaries of 3D scene understanding with machine learning.
Prof. Matthias Nießner is a Professor at the Technical University of Munich , where he leads the Visual Computing Lab . Prior to this, he held a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Stanford University . His work bridges computer vision , graphics , and machine learning , focusing on 3D reconstruction , semantic scene understanding , and AI-driven video synthesis . Prof. Nießner has published over 150 works in top venues like SIGGRAPH , CVPR , and ECCV , with several receiving best paper awards (SIGCHI’14, HPG’15, SPG’18, SIGGRAPH’16 Emerging Tech). His research has garnered international media attention, including features in the New York Times , Wall Street Journal , and MIT Technological Review , as well as TV demonstrations (e.g., Jimmy Kimmel Live for Face2Face technology). Awards : TUM-IAS Rudolph Moessbauer Fellowship (2017–ongoing) Google Faculty Award (2017) Nvidia Professor Partnership Award (2018) ERC Starting Grant (2018, €1.5M) Eurographics Young Researcher Award (2019) Research Trends : 3D Gaussian Splatting for real-time rendering Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) with mesh supervision Audio-driven facial animation via diffusion models Latent space diffusion for 3D scenes Self-supervised and zero-shot methods for 3D and image analysis As a co-founder and director of Synthesia Inc. , he drives democratization of synthetic media. His YouTube channel has over 5 million views, reflecting his impact beyond academia.
Jonathan T. Barron is a Researcher at Google DeepMind in San Francisco, specializing in Computer Vision , Neural Rendering , and 3D Scene Reconstruction . He earned his PhD at UC Berkeley under Jitendra Malik and has pioneered advancements in NeRF (Neural Radiance Fields) and diffusion-based 3D generation. Research Interests : Computer Vision, Deep Learning, Generative AI, Image Processing, and 3D Reconstruction via Radiance Fields. His work includes Bolt3D for rapid 3D scene generation, CAT3D/CAT4D for text-to-3D/4D, and Zip-NeRF for anti-aliased radiance fields. He has also developed real-time rendering frameworks like SMERF and NeRF-Casting for reflections. Scientific awards: PAMI Young Researcher Award He has served as Area Chair for CVPR, ICCV, and NeurIPS, and his research is widely adopted in applications like Google's Lens Blur , Portrait Mode , and Jump VR .
Christopher Morris is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at RWTH Aachen University and a DFG Emmy Noether fellow. He leads the Learning on Graphs (LoG) research group, focusing on machine learning methods for structured data, particularly graph neural networks. His work bridges machine learning, computer science theory, and discrete mathematics, addressing challenges in generalization, expressivity, and algorithmic efficiency. Education: PhD in Computer Science from TU Dortmund University (advised by Petra Mutzel and Kristian Kersting), postdoctoral research at Mila - Quebec AI Institute (Siamak Ravanbakhsh) and McGill University, and Polytechnique Montréal (Andrea Lodi). Research interests emphasize graph machine learning, including generalization theory, combinatorial optimization, and scalable graph embeddings. Notable contributions include analyzing Weisfeiler-Leman algorithms' impact on GNNs' expressivity and generalization (VC dimension connections). Awards: DFG Emmy Noether Fellowship. Supervises six PhD students in Aachen. Active in teaching, offering courses on graph-based machine learning foundations and applications since 2022. Labs/Teams: LoG group at RWTH Aachen, collaborating with institutions like Mila and Polytechnique Montréal. Erdős number 3 through Petra Mutzel’s collaboration network.
Dr. Vincent Fortuin is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and a research group leader at Helmholtz AI in Munich. He leads the Efficient Learning and Probabilistic Inference for Science (ELPIS) group and holds multiple prestigious fellowships including the Branco Weiss Fellowship. His academic affiliations include the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology, the Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Reliable AI, and the Munich Center for Machine Learning. Dr. Fortuin earned his BSc in Molecular Life Sciences from the University of Hamburg (2012-2015), followed by an MSc in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from ETH Zürich (2015-2017), where he received the ETH Excellence Scholarship and the Willi Studer Prize. He completed his PhD in Machine Learning at ETH Zürich (2017-2021) under the supervision of Gunnar Rätsch and Andreas Krause, supported by a Swiss Data Science Center PhD Fellowship. Prior to joining TUM, he was a Research Fellow at St. John's College, University of Cambridge (2022-2023). His research focuses on the intersection of Bayesian statistics and deep learning, specifically developing methods for more robust, data-efficient AI systems with reliable uncertainty estimates. His work addresses critical limitations in standard deep learning approaches, particularly their tendency to be overconfident in predictions and require large datasets for training. He investigates better priors and more efficient inference techniques for Bayesian deep learning, deep generative modeling, meta-learning, and PAC-Bayesian theory, with applications in scientific and biomedical domains. Dr. Fortuin's recent publications demonstrate a consistent focus on improving uncertainty quantification in deep learning systems, with increasing emphasis on practical applications in scientific contexts. His work spans from theoretical foundations of Bayesian deep learning to practical implementations in protein design, materials science, and medical applications. A notable trend is his exploration of how to make Bayesian methods more scalable and applicable to modern large-scale AI systems while maintaining theoretical guarantees. Branco Weiss Fellowship (2023) St John's College Research Fellowship (2022) Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship (2022) Swiss Data Science Center PhD Fellowship (2018) ETH Excellence Scholarship (2015) Willi Studer Award (2018) Dr. Fortuin actively supervises PhD and Master's students through his ELPIS research group at Helmholtz AI. He serves as a regular reviewer and area chair for major machine learning conferences and is an action editor for TMLR. He co-organizes the Symposium on Advances in Approximate Bayesian Inference (AABI) and the ICBINB initiative, demonstrating his commitment to advancing the field through community building. His research group receives funding from multiple sources including Helmholtz AI, the Branco Weiss Fellowship, and collaborations with international institutions. Dr. Fortuin leads the Efficient Learning and Probabilistic Inference for Science (ELPIS) group at Helmholtz AI, which focuses on fundamental machine learning research motivated by real-world scientific problems. The group collaborates extensively with researchers across Helmholtz centers and international institutions, particularly in biomedical applications where reliable uncertainty estimates are crucial.
Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and StochasticsGermany
Vladimir Spokoiny is a Professor at the Departments of Mathematics and Economics of the Humboldt University of Berlin and Head of the Research Group "Stochastic Algorithms and Nonparametric Statistics" at the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics (WIAS) in Berlin, Germany. His research spans multiple areas of statistics, machine learning, and financial mathematics, with significant contributions to nonparametric statistics, high-dimensional data analysis, and statistical methods in finance. Spokoiny received his M.Sc. in applied mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Railway Engineering in 1981 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1988. He completed his Habilitation at Humboldt University in 1996. His academic career includes positions at the All-Union Institute of Railway Transport in Moscow, the Institute for Information Transmission Problems in Moscow, and the Institute for Applied Analysis and Statistics in Berlin before joining the Weierstrass Institute and Humboldt University where he has been a professor since 2002. Spokoiny's research focuses on adaptive nonparametric smoothing and hypothesis testing, high dimensional data analysis, statistical methods in finance, image analysis with applications to medicine, classification, and nonlinear time series. His work often addresses the challenges of nonstationarity in time series data and develops innovative methods for volatility estimation and risk management. He has made significant contributions to the development of adaptive weights smoothing procedures, which have applications in image processing, community detection, and manifold learning. His recent work has expanded into high-dimensional statistics, Bayesian inference, and optimization methods for machine learning, with publications demonstrating novel approaches to Gaussian approximation, Laplace methods, and statistical inference in non-Euclidean spaces. Spokoiny has supervised numerous PhD students including Oliver Reiss, Danilo Mercurio, Ying Chen, Elmar Diederichs, and Mstislav Elagin, whose research has focused on mathematical finance, time series analysis, and statistical methods. He serves as an Associate Editor for The Annals of Statistics (since 2004) and Statistics and Decisions (since 2002), and has previously served on the editorial board of the Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference. His professional activities include reviewing for major statistical journals including Annals of Statistics, Bernoulli, Econometrica, and Journal of American Statistical Association, as well as reviewing grant proposals for the National Science Foundation (USA), German Research Foundation, and Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. Spokoiny is a member of several professional societies including the International Statistical Institute, American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and Bernoulli Society. He is fluent in Russian (mother tongue), English, and German, and has good knowledge of French. His research group at WIAS focuses on developing novel statistical methodologies with applications across various scientific domains, particularly emphasizing adaptivity and robustness in complex data environments. The group's work has significant implications for financial risk management, medical imaging, and machine learning applications, with recent publications addressing fundamental questions in high-dimensional statistics and nonparametric inference.
Prof. Bryan Ford leads the Decentralized/Distributed Systems (DEDIS) lab at EPFL. He focuses on secure decentralized systems, including blockchain technology, privacy, and systems security. He earned his Ph.D. from MIT and held faculty positions at Yale University and EPFL. His work spans distributed consensus protocols, peer-to-peer networking, and privacy-preserving systems. Key projects include QuePaxa (timeout-free consensus), UIA (global connectivity for mobile devices), and MedCo (secure healthcare data sharing). He advises numerous PhD students and contributes to open-source projects like Bitcoin collective signing and privacy networks like Riffle. Education: Ph.D., MIT; Postdoctoral work at Yale Research interests include blockchain scalability, consensus algorithms, and cryptographic privacy. His lab develops systems like TRIP for coercion-resistant voting and F3B to mitigate blockchain front-running. His work on NAT traversal and peer-to-peer protocols (e.g., STUN/ICE) remains foundational in network architecture. He emphasizes practical, auditable security solutions such as CertiKOS and atomic cross-chain transactions (Atom). Notable contributions: CoSi (collective signing), OmniLedger (sharded blockchain), and privacy-preserving protocols like PURBs (Protected Unsealable Recursive Boxes). His lab collaborates with Swiss Post to audit e-voting systems and designs democratic cryptocurrencies like PoPCoin.
Christian Schlag is a Professor at the Finance Department of Goethe University Frankfurt’s Faculty of Economics and Business , where he also serves as Dean. He leads the Chair of Derivatives and Financial Engineering and coordinates young researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE. His research focuses on equilibrium asset pricing, derivative securities, and empirical capital market analysis. Research Trends : Schlag’s recent work explores volatility dynamics, climate risk in asset pricing, return predictability, and investor behavior. His 2023 publications examine time-varying consumption growth risk, equity factors, and individual stock volatility models. Earlier studies (2021–2015) address pricing kernels, welfare costs of temperature volatility, and model mis-specification in hedging. Student Placements : Former advisees hold positions at institutions like the European Central Bank, INSEAD, Australian National University, and Warwick Business School. His Chair of Derivatives and Financial Engineering collaborates with networks across Europe, North America, and Asia.
Bernhard Schölkopf is a Professor and director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen. He previously served as a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (2001-2011) and held industrial positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Microsoft Research, and Biowulf Technologies. He is also an honorary professor at the Technical University of Berlin since 2002. Education : Studied physics, mathematics, and philosophy in Tübingen and London; received a doctorate in computer science from the Technical University of Berlin (1997). His research spans machine learning , artificial intelligence , and causal inference , with interdisciplinary applications in computational neuroscience and theoretical computer science . He has contributed to foundational work in kernel methods, support vector machines, and causal modeling. Scientific Awards : Körber Prize 2019
Moritz Wiese is a Researcher at the Chair of Theoretical Information Technology within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Technische Universität München (TUM) . His work focuses on information-theoretic security, quantum communication, and wireless networks, with significant contributions to interference modeling and secure coding schemes. Research Interests : Information-Theoretic Security, Quantum Wiretap Channels, MIMO Systems, 5G/6G Technologies, Physical Layer Security, and Network Coding. Key Grants : Involved in DFG-funded projects (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, UKoloS) and BMBF initiatives (6G-life, QuaDiQua). Collaborations : Worked with Prof. Holger Boche, Christian Deppe, and Rami Ezzine on secure communication and randomness generation. Labs : Active in the ACES Lab and 6G-life research hub, focusing on joint communication/sensing and neuromorphic computing. Publications : Over 20 papers on secure estimation, wiretap channels, and quantum secrecy, including top-tier journals like IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and Journal of Mathematical Physics .
Prof. Nicolas Perkowski is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Freie Universität Berlin, specializing in Stochastic Analysis and Probability Theory. He holds roles such as Vice Spokesperson of DFG CRC/TRR 388 (since 2024) and Chair of the Master of Mathematics Examination Board. His research focuses on stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs), rough paths, and applications in mathematical physics. Notable contributions include work on singular SPDEs, fractional processes, and the KPZ equation. Perkowski has authored/co-authored numerous publications in top journals like the Annals of Probability and Communications in Mathematical Physics, and he serves as an associate editor for several journals. His institutional responsibilities include leadership in research collaborations and academic governance. Education: PhD and diploma in stochastic population models (details not explicitly provided in text). Research Interests: Stochastic Analysis, Probability Theory, SPDEs, Mathematical Physics, Nonlinear Filtering. Recent Articles: Focus on fractional processes, SPDEs with singular terminal conditions, and stochastic sewing lemmas. His work bridges theoretical probability with applications in physics and engineering, with a strong emphasis on rigorous mathematical frameworks for complex stochastic systems.
Kord Eickmeyer is a Lecturer at Technische Universität Darmstadt in the Department of Mathematics, specializing in the mathematical logic group. He holds a PhD in mathematics from Humboldt University Berlin and has held postdoctoral positions at TU Darmstadt (2011–2017) and the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo (2011–2013). His research focuses on finite model theory, graph structure theory, and computational complexity, particularly in descriptive and parameterized complexity, as well as randomization and derandomization techniques. Research interests include exploring the boundaries of computational complexity through logical frameworks, analyzing graph structures for efficient algorithm design, and investigating the role of randomness in computation. His work bridges theoretical computer science and mathematical logic, with applications in algorithm design and formal methods. Publications span topics from model-checking on ordered structures to gap-planar graphs and randomized logics. Collaborations include prominent institutions like the National Institute of Informatics and Humboldt University Berlin. No scientific awards are explicitly listed, but his extensive academic contributions reflect a strong research trajectory. Advising and grants are not detailed in the provided text, though his academic career includes supervision roles during his PhD and postdoctoral phases. His involvement with the mathematical logic group at TU Darmstadt highlights collaborative research efforts in foundational areas of computer science and mathematics.
Dominik Schnaus is a PhD Student at the Computer Vision Group within the School of Computation, Information and Technology at the Technical University of Munich. His research focuses on computer vision and deep learning, particularly in vision-language correspondence and uncertainty estimation in neural networks. Research Interests: 3D/4D reconstruction, vision-language models, neural network uncertainty, robotics Contact: dominik.schnaus@tum.de
Michio Honda is an Associate Professor (Reader) at the School of Informatics , University of Edinburgh , specializing in computer networking and operating systems . His research focuses on network stack designs, including co-design of networking and storage systems, and transport scale-out architectures. He has contributed to foundational work such as identifying TCP extensibility challenges (IMC'11) and pioneering TCP/IP stacks for persistent memory (NSDI'18). Research Trends : His 15 most recent works emphasize systems research, with keywords spanning Networking , Operating Systems , and High-Performance Computing . Sub-fields include TCP Protocol Design , Persistent Memory Optimization , and Network Scalability . Awards : Notable honors include the ISOC/IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize (2011), Facebook Research Award (2021), and Google Research Scholar Award (2022). Grants & Collaborations : Current projects involve network/storage co-design (HotNets'21) and transport scale-out (NSDI'21), often in collaboration with institutions like VMWare and Google.
