SIC researchers honored as influential minds in German artificial intelligence

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The Gesellschaft für Informatik has selected ten influential thinkers from the German history of artificial intelligence (AI). In the “Science Year 2019 – Artificial Intelligence” proclaimed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the jury selected ten outstanding scientists who have a significant influence on AI in Germany. Five of them have also done research on the Saarland Informatics Campus (SIC).

Professor Elisabeth André studied computer science at Saarland University and worked from 1988 to 2001 at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Saarbrücken, where she led several projects in the field of “Intelligent Multimedia User Interfaces”. In 2001, she was appointed to the newly established Institute for Computer Science at the University of Augsburg, where she has held the chair for Human Centered Multimedia ever since. Her specialization is in human-machine interaction.

Professor Susanne Biundo-Stephan was Senior Researcher in the research area Intelligent User Interfaces at DFKI from 1989 to 1998. Since 1998 she has been Professor of Computer Science at the University of Ulm. Her specializations are plan-based AI, automated theorem proofing, knowledge modeling and cognitive systems.

Professor Bernhard Nebel received his PhD from Saarland University and worked at DFKI from 1989 to 1993 in various projects in the field of intelligent user interfaces. He currently holds a chair for AI at the University of Freiburg. His research focuses on knowledge representation and action planning with a special focus on applications within robotics.

Professor Jörg Siekmann was Germany’s first Professor of Artificial Intelligence in Kaiserslautern in 1983, took over a chair in Saarbrücken in 1991 and helped to establish DFKI as one of its directors. His research focuses on automatic proofs in mathematics, unification theory, e-learning for mathematics, formal methods and multi-agent systems.

Professor Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster received his doctorate in 1981 on dialogue systems with explanatory components for AI systems. Already 33 years ago he co-initiated the DFKI, which was formally founded in 1988 and is today the world’s largest AI research center with more than 1000 employees. In 2001 he was awarded the Future Prize of the Federal President for his research on speech dialog systems and was the only German AI researcher to be admitted to the Wall of Fame of AI as well as the Hall of Fame.

The award is part of the project “#KI50: Artificial Intelligence in Germany – yesterday, today, tomorrow” of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI). With #KI50, the GI wants to inspire, based on its 50th anniversary and the Science Year 2019 – Artificial Intelligence, to reflect on German AI history, to take a look toward the future and to make the topic more accessible to a broader public. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. /gb