Members of the Chair for AI Methodology at RWTH Aachen University

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.Sc. Kim Schrouff Administration

E-mail: secret[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Kim is doing the administrative stuff.

Dipl. Inform. Willi Geffers System Administration

E-mail: sysman[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Willi keeps our systems running.

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.

Dr. Roman Kalkreuth Assistant Professor (Akademischer Rat)

E-mail: kalkreuth[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Roman has received a Master's Degree in Computer Vision and Computational Intelligence in 2012 from South Westphalia University of Applied Science and a PhD degree in 2021 from TU Dortmund University.

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.

LinkedIn

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.

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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. Konstantin Kaulen PhD Student

E-mail: kaulen[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Konstantin received a Master's degree in Computer Science at RWTH Aachen University (Germany) in 2024.

During his studies, machine learning caught his interest early on. He is particularly passionate about analyzing and improving the robustness and security of AI systems. In his master's thesis, he developed running time prediction and algorithm selection techniques for verifying neural networks. In addition, he gained valuable experience as a software developer and project manager while working as a student assistant at a home automation company. In his free time, Konstantin pursues his passion for music by playing the piano and singing in the Aachen Cathedral Choir.

GitHub

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.

LinkedIn

M.Sc. Anna Münz PhD Student

E-mail: 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 empirical performance prediction with applications to hyperparameter optimisation for machine learning, benchmarking, algorithm configuration and algorithm selection.

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.

BSc. Polina Kozarovitskaya Student Assistant

E-mail: polina[dot]kozarovitskaya[at]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Polina holds a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, where she completed her thesis on hyperparameter optimization in neural networks and subsequently published a paper on the topic. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Data Science at RWTH Aachen University, specializing in machine learning.

Andreas Romann Student Assistant

E-mail: andreas[dot]romann[at]rwth-aachen[dot]de

B.Sc. Emir Pisirici Student Assistant

E-mail: emir[dot]pisirici[at]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Emir is a Computer Science student at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, where he focuses on Artificial Intelligence and its practical applications.

His academic journey has sparked a deep curiosity for AI, particularly in fields like machine learning and automation. Emir has also gained valuable programming experience through various projects, which allowed him to combine his technical skills with his passion for problem-solving. In his free time, Emir enjoys staying active with ice skating, fitness, and snowboarding.

B.Sc. Erfan Moeini Master Student

E-mail: erfan[dot]moeini[at]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Erfan Moeini is a pursuing a Master’s degree at RWTH Aachen University. He focuses on meta learning for time-series data and works in collaboration with Volkswagen AG.

B.Sc. Amelie Dittmann Master Student

E-mail: amelie[dot]dittmann[at]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Amelie Dittmann is working on her master’s thesis at AIM. She focuses on applying neural network verification in the medical domain.

M.A. Katharina Franke Research Network Coordinator

E-mail: franke[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de

Katharina works at RWTH as a research network coordinator. She studied English and History at RWTH Aachen University and started working for the local newspaper as a freelancer during her BA studies. After her studies, she did a journalistic traineeship at the press office of the city of Aachen. She has been working as an editor ever since.

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Former members