Best paper award for Sameer Ambekar

Students

Students

Congratulations! relAI student Sameer Ambekar wins the best paper award at the MICCAI Workshop on Advancing Data Solutions in Medical Imaging AI (ADSMI). 

Sameer is a PhD student at relAI, advised by the relAI Fellow Julia A. Schnabel. His research focusses on test-time adaptation and domain generalization for medical imaging. 

His award-winning paper “Selective Test-Time Adaptation for Unsupervised Anomaly Detection using Neural Implicit Representations”, co-authored with Julia A. Schnabel and Cosmin Bereca, presents a novel zero-shot methodology to adapt models in real time to test images from new domains using deep pre-trained features. The approach is validated on brain anomaly detection data. 

This work addresses domain shift at test-time, which Sameer explains in more detail in his recently published relAI blog post. In the post, you can also learn about the importance of handling domain shifts to make AI more reliable: https://zuseschoolrelai.de/blog/mitigating-domain-shifts/  

Congratulations on this achievement!  

Image Copyright (c): Thomas Abé/Studienstiftung

Congratulations to relAI student Maria Matveev! 

The German National Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung) has awarded Maria the Civic Engagement Award 2024 for her exceptional volunteering work with Lern-Fair. Maria co-founded and chairs Lern-Fair e.V., a non-profit organization dedicated to providing free educational opportunities for underprivileged pupils. Since the start of the online platform in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, more than 15.000 pupils were supported by free tutoring or group courses. 

Maria is a relAI PhD student at the chair for Mathematical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence at LMU and the Munich Center for Machine Learning. Her PhD research, advised by the relAI director Gitta Kutyniok, focuses on the mathematical description and understanding of training dynamics related to generalization, a crucial factor for ensuring the reliability of neural networks. 

Learn more about Marias volunteer work in the video portrait (in German): https://youtu.be/EUZdm--sqmc?feature=shared 

Are you interested in frontier AI systems, their astonishing capabilities and risks for humanity? Then join us for a thought-provoking deep dive and exclusive OpenAI Live Q&A on AI safety. 

  • Date: Wednesday, May 8th, 2024 | 19:00 – 20:30 
  • Location: Room B006, Department of Mathematics (Theresienstr. 39) or online 
  • Language: English 

Agenda: 

  • 19:00 – 19:05: Doors open 
  • 19:05 – 19:30: Introduction to AI Safety 
  • 19:30 – 20:15: Presentation & Live Q&A with OpenAI researcher Jan H. Kirchner, co-author of weak-to-strong generalization paper 
  • 20:15 – 20:30: Closing talk – What can we do? 
  • 20:30 – onward: Optional socializing and small group discussions with free drinks and snacks. 

Please register on the following webpage and prepare your questions! 

Last week, our relAI students presented their research to the relAI industry partners in a series of industry workshops. Four events took place, each centered around one of  the four relAI’s research areas: Mathematical & Algorithmic foundations, Algorithmic Decision-Making, Medicine & Healthcare and Robotics & Interacting Systems. 

We are thrilled that this event was so well received both by the students and the industry partners! Following short lightning talks, intriguing discussions around reliability of AI took place in smaller breakout groups.  

The industry workshops are part of relAI´s cross-sectional training and aim to facilitate the exchange of insights and expertise between academia and industry. The engagement from both our students and industry fellows emphasized the significance of bridging academic excellence with real-world applications, particularly when addressing the evolving challenges in AI reliability. 

We are excited to announce that our call for applications to the relAI MSc program is now open! 

The novel, innovative relAI MSc program is an addition to a regular MSc program at Technical University of Munich (TUM) or Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), offering comprehensive cross-sectional training in reliable AI, including scientific knowledge, professional development courses, and industrial exposure. Funded applicants receive a scholarship of up to 934€ and additional support such as travel grants for home travel.   

relAI, funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), is embedded in the unique transdisciplinary Munich AI ecosystem, combining the expertise of the two Universities of Excellence TUM and LMU of Munich.  

We highly encourage you to apply if you:   

  • hold an excellent Bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, engineering, natural sciences or other data science/machine learning/AI related disciplines,  
  • are accepted to a MSc program in said disciplines at either TUM or LMU starting in spring or fall 2024, or have applied there (Acceptance necessary before joining relAI) 
  • have a genuine interest to study reliable AI covering aspects such as safety, security, privacy and responsibility in one relAI’s research areas Mathematical & Algorithmic foundations, Algorithmic Decision-Making, Medicine & Healthcare or Robotics & Interacting Systems, and
  • can certify proficiency in English on C1 or higher level.  

📆 Application Deadline: June 17th, 2024  

🔗 Apply now: www.zuseschoolrelai.de/application 

We are excited to announce that our second call for applications to the fully funded PhD program of our Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Reliable AI (relAI) is now open. 

Spread the word and submit your application by January 15th, 2024 here. 

On the 11th and 12th of October, relAI welcomed the new cohort of relAI Master and Doctoral students. The event included informative sessions about relAI and networking activities. At the Munich Data Science Institute (MDSI), TUM, the relAI directors and coordinators presented the relAI program to the new students. The first relAI cohort of students organised a lively interactive session (photo) to welcome and get to know the new students.

Congratulations to the relAI PhD Student Lisa Wimmer, the relAI fellow Bernd Bischl, and the relAI director Stephan Günnemann on the best paper award of the European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML PKDD 2023).

ECML PKDD is Europe’s top machine learning and data mining conference, with over 20 years of successful events and conferences across the continent. The ECML PKDD 2023 was held in Turin, Italy from the 18th to the 22nd of September 2023.

List of authors and title of the awarded paper:Jonas Gregor Wiese, Lisa Wimmer, Theodore Papamarkou, Bernd Bischl, Stephan Günnemann, David Rügamer    
Towards Efficient MCMC Sampling in Bayesian Neural Networks by Exploiting Symmetry

We are excited to announce that applications for the relAI Master program are now open. Interested candidates can apply through our website. Deadline for applications is June 16th, 2023.

The novel, innovative MSc relAI program offers a cross-sectional training for successful education in AI including scientific knowledge, professional development courses and industrial exposure, providing a coherent, yet flexible and personalised training.

Funded applicants will receive a stipend of up to 934 EUR (depending on independent income). We expressly encourage international students to apply. They will be further supported by travel grants for home travel.

We encourage candidates with an excellent bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in computer science, mathematics, engineering, natural sciences or other data science/machine learning/AI related disciplines and a genuine interest to work on a topic of reliable AI to apply (in parallel to applying for a master program at TUM or LMU).