Gjergji Kasneci is a German

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

known for his contributions to the field of

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, specifically,

knowledge base In computer science, a knowledge base (KB) is a set of sentences, each sentence given in a knowledge representation language, with interfaces to tell new sentences and to ask questions about what is known, where either of these interfaces migh ...

construction,

semantic search Semantic search denotes search with meaning, as distinguished from lexical search where the search engine looks for literal matches of the query words or variants of them, without understanding the overall meaning of the query. Semantic search seek ...

, and

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

. He is a full professor and heads the chair for Responsible Data Science at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

(TUM), and is a core member of the Munich Data Science Institute. Before his current appointment, Kasneci has held multiple positions in academia and industry, including the role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at

Schufa Schufa Holding AG (; English: ''General Credit Protection Agency''), proper spelling SCHUFA, is a German private credit bureau supported by creditors. It has its headquarters in Wiesbaden. Schufa's purpose is to protect its clients from credit r ...

Holding AG and an honorary professorship at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

Education and career

Kasneci completed his studies in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg () is a public research university located in Marburg, Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Prote ...

. In 2006, he joined the

Max Planck Institute for Informatics The Max Planck Institute for Informatics (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik'', abbreviated ''MPI-INF'' or ''MPII'') is a research institute in computer science with a focus on algorithms and their applications in a broad sense. It host ...

, earning his PhD from the

University of Saarland Saarland University (, ) is a public research university located in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It was founded in 1948 in Homburg in co-operation with France and is organized in six faculties that cover all major f ...

in 2009. Together with his co-authors Fabian Suchanek and

Gerhard Weikum Gerhard Weikum (born September 28, 1957) is a German computer scientist and Research Director at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany, where he is leading the databases and information systems department. His current ...

, Kasneci has contributed to research on the

YAGO (database) YAGO (Yet Another Great Ontology) is an open source knowledge base developed at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken. It is automatically extracted from Wikidata and Schema.org. YAGO4, which was released in 2020, combines da ...

, one of the first large-scale knowledge bases automatically assembled from multiple web sources, and semantic search over large knowledge bases. These contributions have set the foundation for many fact-based reasoning and semantic search methodologies in Artificial Intelligence, and the development of so-called knowledge graphs for structured

information retrieval Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the task of identifying and retrieving information system resources that are relevant to an Information needs, information need. The information need can be specified in the form ...

. The work on the YAGO knowledge base was awarded the Seoul Test of Time Award of the International World Wide Web Conference Committee. Upon receiving his PhD in 2009, Kasneci moved to the United Kingdom to join

Microsoft Research Cambridge Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

as a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

. In 2011, he was appointed as Senior Researcher in

Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...

at the

Hasso Plattner Institute The Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH (; HPI) is an information technology non-profit company affiliated with the University of Potsdam in Potsdam, Brandenburg, northeastern Germany. The teaching and research of HPI are f ...

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

, Germany. In 2014, Kasneci transitioned into industry, taking up a position at Schufa Holding AG as the head of Innovation and Strategic Analysis. In 2017, he took over the role of the company's Chief Technology Officer, a position he held until 2023. Concurrently, from 2018 to 2023, as an honorary professor, Kasneci led the Data Science and Analytics Research Group at the University of Tübingen. During this period, he also served as a core member of Cyber Valley.

Research work

Kasneci's research interests span across various facets of Artificial Intelligence, currently emphasizing transparency, efficiency, accountability, and thus the responsible application of AI-based technologies. His current work explores explainability of AI models, fairness and ethical implications of AI, and the effectiveness of strategies for evaluating large AI models on challenging datasets.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kasneci, Gjergji Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich German computer scientists Living people University of Marburg alumni Saarland University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)