Prof. Dr. Holger H. Hoos
Chair Holder, Alexander von Humboldt Professor
E-mail: hh[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Phone: +49 241 80 21451
Holger H. Hoos holds an Alexander von Humboldt professorship in AI at RWTH Aachen University (Germany), as well as a professorship in machine learning at Universiteit Leiden (the Netherlands) and an adjunct professorship in computer science at the University of British Columbia (Canada).
He is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the European AI Association (EurAI), past president of the Canadian Association for Artificial Intelligence and one of initiators of CLAIRE, an initiative by the European AI community that seeks to strengthen European excellence in AI research and innovation (claire-ai.org).
B.A. Maddy Ruppé
Research Network Coordinator
E-mail: ruppe[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
As participant in the Erasmus+ exchange program years ago, Maddy moved from her native Normandy (France) to Aachen, which soon became her adopted city.
Thanks to her work at the International Office of RWTH Aachen University, she discovered her passion for event management and international cooperation, which she will put to good use at the Chair for AI Methodology (AIM). In her free time, Maddy learns to play bass guitar, reads scandinavian thrillers and regularly attends cultural events.
Dr. Jakob Bossek
Assistant Professor (Akademischer Rat)
E-mail: bossek[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Phone: +49 241 80 21453
Jakob received his bachelor degree in Statistics and diploma in Computer Science from the TU Dortmund University (Germany) in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
In 2018 he finished his doctorate studies in Information Systems at the University of Münster, Germany. He held PostDoc positions at the University of Münster, Germany and the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is now assistant professor (Akademischer Rat) at the Chair for AI Methodology (AIM) at the RWTH Aachen University. His broad research interests include practical and theoretical aspects of bio-inspired problem solving, in particular evolutionary algorithms for NP-hard combinatorial optimisation problems.
Dr. Igor Vatolkin
Assistant Professor (Akademischer Rat)
E-mail: vatolkin[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Igor has received a diploma degree in Computer Science and Music as a secondary subject in 2007 and a PhD degree in 2013, both from the TU Dortmund University.
His research focus addresses the optimization of music data analysis applications like genre or instrument recognition with the help of artificial intelligence, in particular evolutionary multi-objective algorithms. He has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed contributions to conference proceedings, journals, and books.
M.Sc. Marie Anastacio
PostDoc
E-mail: anastacio[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Marie received a Computer Science engineering degree from the Technology University of Belfort-Montbéliard (France) in 2012.
During her studies, she did a research internship on Computer Vision at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (Canada), where she stayed until 2015 to complete a Master's there in Natural Language Processing. In 2017, she started a PhD under the supervision of Holger Hoos about automated algorithm configuration at Leiden University (The Netherlands) and is now a postdoc at RWTH Aachen University (Germany). Besides research, she emphasises improving the inner dynamics of her community - by organising research talks in her institute, being part of a Diversity Committee and co-founding the CLAIRE Rising Researcher Network - and the outreach toward future researchers - by participating in initiatives aimed at pre-university students or high-school students.
M.Sc. Justin Dettmer
PhD Student
E-mail: dettmer[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Justin received his Master’s degree in applied computer science from Ruhr University Bochum in 2023.
His work has focused on evolutionary algorithms for music information retrieval, developing a benchmark environment for reinforcement learning from industry use cases, natural language generation for song lyrics, and teaching classes for game development. He has previously worked as a student assistant at Ruhr University Bochum, and as assistant product manager in a software development startup.
When not staring at a computer screen, he sings in his metal band or likes to play board games.
M.Sc. Julian Dierkes
PhD Student
E-mail: dierkes[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Julian completed his Master's degree in Computer Science at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) in 2022, specializing in Machine Learning.
During his studies, he gained valuable experience as a student assistant in natural language processing, with a focus on automatic speech recognition and machine translation. Starting his PhD journey, Julian's interests center around Automatic Machine Learning, specifically in the realm of Reinforcement Learning. His initial research areas include exploring dynamic hyperparameter optimization for Reinforcement Learning and addressing the gap between simulated and real-world environments. Outside of academia, Julian enjoys honing his Hip Hop dancing skills and improving his chess abilities.
M.Sc. Henning Duwe
PhD Student
E-mail: duwe[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Henning received a bachelor's degree in "Industrial Engineering and Management" from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Goettingen (Germany) in 2021 and finished his Master's degree in the same field at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in 2023.
He holds a scholarship from the "Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft (sdw)". During his Master, he developed a strong interest in Artificial Intelligence and wrote his thesis in the "Machine Learning for Smart Mobility" group at DTU, in which he investigated how Machine Learning can be used to model route choices in urban areas.
Henning worked as a paramedic for three years during his time as a federal volunteer in Oldenburg (Germany) and his undergraduate time in Goettingen until he started working as a teaching assistant for multiple mathematics courses.
Dr. Anja Jankovic
PostDoc
E-mail: jankovic[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Anja obtained her PhD in Computer Science from LIP6, Sorbonne University (France) in December 2021, under the supervision of Dr.-Ing. Carola Doerr.
She held a postdoctoral teaching and research fellow (ATER) position at the same university until December 2023, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the AIM Chair, RWTH Aachen University (Germany). Her research interests lie in the intersection of evolutionary computation and machine learning, with the primary focus on black-box optimization across different (fundamental and applied) domains. In particular, she focuses on dynamic algorithm selection and configuration, and more broadly on 'on-the-fly' meta-learning for AutoML systems.
M.Sc. Nick Kocher
PhD Student
E-mail: kocher[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Nick completed his master’s degree in computer science at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) in 2023 with a focus on High-Performance Computing.
During his studies he worked as a student assistant on real time tracking in industrial processes. His master thesis analyzes the performance impact of surrogate machine learning models in computational fluid dynamics. Nick is also a doctoral researcher at the Helmholtz School for Data Science (HDSLEE). Besides his studies, Nick enjoys playing football and strategy games.
M.Sc. Anna Münz
PhD Student
E-mail: anna[dot]muenz[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Anna finished her Master's degree in Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), specialising in the field of optimisation.
During her studies, she worked as a teaching assistant for Mathematics for Computer Scientists and as a student assistant, primarily focusing on the automated structure recognition in eye-tracking data. Additionally, she worked as a student assistant at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM, where she concentrated on multicriteria optimisation research. Her master thesis focused specifically on the practical improvement of the approximation of multicriteria optimisation problems. Besides her studies, dancing has always been one of Anna's passions.
M.Sc. Hadar Shavit
PhD Student
E-mail: shavit[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Hadar completed his Master's degree in Computer Science at Leiden University (the Netherlands) in 2023.
During his master's degree, Hadar developed a research interest in artificial intelligence and wrote a few papers in the field. His research focuses on AutoAI for NP-Complete problems, such as Neural Network Verification and SAT.
M.Sc. Wadie Skaf
PhD Student
E-mail: skaf[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Wadie earned a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, with a major in Software Engineering, from Tishreen University (Syria) in 2018.
He then received the SCYP scholarship to pursue a Master's Degree in Computer Science at Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary), where he specialized in Artificial Intelligence and graduated in 2021. His research interests include Time Series Analysis, Anomaly Detection, and Audio Analysis. Wadie has worked as a researcher at T-Labs (Deutsche Telekom’s Innovation Labs) in Eötvös Loránd University's office in Hungary, and as a teaching assistant at the same university. Additionally, he has held multiple positions in the industry as a Software Engineer and an MLOps. Wadie is also passionate about creating educational content on AI, maintaining a Medium blog, and hosting a podcast called "The AI Frontier". Currently, he is working towards a PhD in Computer Science, focusing on AutoAI and Time Series at AIM Chair, RWTH Aachen.
M.Sc. Thijs Snelleman
Research Programmer
E-mail: snelleman[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Thijs completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree In Computer Science at Leiden University (Netherlands) in 2022, specialising in Artificial Intelligence.
During his masters he developed his interest for research in AI, during his Thesis on detecting coronary arteries in CCTA scans. During his studies he held multiple roles as a programmer, as well as teaching which he enjoyed very much.
On his days off, Thijs enjoys city walks, cooking stew, reading up on history and video games.
B.Sc. Marcel Baumann
Student Assistant
E-mail: marcel[dot]baumann[at]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Marcel received a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Oldenburg in 2021.
During his studies, he started working at the research institute OFFIS e.V. as a student assistant. Currently, he is doing a master's degree in computer science at RWTH Aachen where he specializes in Reinforcement learning and machine learning in general.
Robin Trautmann
Student Assistant
E-mail: robin[dot]trautmann[at]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Robin is currently studying electrical engineering and information technology at RWTH Aachen University and takes care of the chair’s 3D printer.
M.A. Andrea Gibbels
Administration
Dipl. Inform. Willi Geffers
System Administration
