Speaker Summer School 2025

Dr Rena Beatrice Alcalay, Technical University of Munich

Rena Beatrice Alcalay (formerly Goldstein) is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the Technical University of Munich’s School of Social Sciences and Technology. She is a member of the Philosophy of Open Science research group, funded by the European Research Council, which investigates the conditions necessary for fostering fair and equitable research practices across diverse contexts. Her expertise lies in social and applied epistemology, with a focus on open science, the philosophy of life, and the biomedical sciences.

Her research also includes exegetical studies of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s works—particularly Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty—with a special emphasis on questions emerging from hinge epistemology and social psychology. Her primary interest is in clarifying the nature and potential normativity of hinges, shedding light on the phenomenon of groundless prejudices and stereotypes, and exploring their implications for medicine and education.

In-depths lecture: Scientific Attitudes Toward Risk Variability

Abstract >

Dr Evgeny Bobrov, Charité

Dr Evgeny Bobrov is team lead Open Data and Research Data Management at the QUEST Center of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité. He leads efforts in monitoring data sharing and reuse practices and consults researchers with a focus on the sharing of personal data.

In-depths lecture: How to share personal data

Abstract >

Dr Dilek Fraisl, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Dr Dilek Fraisl is a Senior Research Scholar in the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability Research Group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). She also serves as the Managing Director of the Citizen Science Global Partnership. She holds a PhD in Sustainability Transitions, with research interests spanning sustainable development, data and statistics, Earth Observation, and citizen science as theory, practice, and evidence-base for policy development. She has worked in the areas of data governance and data management, including research on citizen science data quality. Dilek has led and contributed to various citizen science projects focused on marine litter, land use land cover, and other critical environmental issues, funded by the European Commission, UN agencies, and other global donors. Additionally, she has contributed to key UN reports, such as “Measuring Progress: Environment and the SDGs” by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Dilek has several board and expert group memberships with scientific communities, the UN, and other global initiatives, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Resilience Frontiers, the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) Citizen Data Expert Group and Collaborative, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) Science Policy Business Forum, UN- Habitat Quality of Life Program, and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), among others. She is also actively involved in organizing committees and scientific advisory boards for several European and global conferences, such as the UN World Data Forum.

In-depths lecture: Collaborative Power of AI and Citizen Science for Sustainable Development

Abstract >

Dr Katrin Frisch, Ombuds Committee for Research Integrity in Germany

Dr Katrin Frisch has been working as a researcher at the Ombuds Committee for Research Integrity in Germany since May 2020, specifically at the project "Discussion Hubs to Foster Research Integrity", with a focus on research data and, since 2023, artificial intelligence. Between March 2023 and March 2024, she also worked as a research integrity advisor at the OWID office. The aim of the Discussion Hubs project is to create practical guidelines supplementary to the DFG Code of Conduct "Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice" as well as producing novel research on research integrity. Recent publications include the FAQ Artificial Intelligence and Research Integrity, a study on authorship and data use conflicts as well as a monograph on fairness in science (both only available in German). You can find an overview of the project and related output here.

Keynote: Maintaining Integrity when Using AI in Your Research

Abstract >

Dr Michael Gastegger, Microsoft Research AI

Michael Gastegger is currently a senior researcher in the Microsoft Research AI for science project. His research focuses on modelling distributions of biomolecules with machine learning. Before joining Microsoft AI for Science, he was a postdoc in the Machine Learning Group at TU Berlin. There, he was working on the development and application of machine learning methods for computational as part of  BASLEARN, the Berlin based joint lab of BASF and TU Berlin for machine learning. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Vienna in Austria in 2017.

In-depths lecture: Machine learning for Sciences: Computational chemistry and biology

Abstract >

Dr Angela Holzer, German Research Foundation

Dr Angela Holzer is a Programme Director at the German Research Foundation. She leads a team that is responsible for the funding of Scholarly Publications as well as the strategy on Open Access and Open Science.

Keynote: Is Open Science still relevant?

Abstract >

Dr Dietmar Kammerer, Weizenbaum Institute

Dr Dietmar Kammerer joined the Weizenbaum Institute in November 2022 as a research data officer. He is responsible for the development and operation of the Open Acces Repository "Weizenbaum Library" as well as for all aspects of reserach data management.

Dietmar studied Literature, Politics and Philosophy in Konstanz, England and Berlin. He received his doctorate in 2008 at the Department of Cultural History and Theory, Humboldt University of Berlin with a dissertation on images of video surveillance. From 2011, he worked as a research associate at the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Marburg with a special focus on film theory and media history. He developed and operated the Open Access Repository for Media Studies and has served as technical and administrative project coordinator in the National Research Data Infrastructure.

His research interests include surveillance, privacy, data protection, Open Science, film and media theory.

https://www.weizenbaum-institut.de/en/portrait/p/dietmar-kammerer/

Dr Eike Middell, BIFOLD & Technische Universität Berlin

Eike Middell is a physicist and scientific software developer with experience in neutrino telescopes, neuroimaging, and spectroscopic sensing. He has worked on signal processing for functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) in Parkinson’s research, led the software development for a commercial, wearable fNIRS system, and contributed to projects in financial forecasting and industrial gas-leak detection. At the Intelligent Biomedical Sensing (IBS) Lab he works on an open-source toolbox for advanced fNIRS/DOT signal analysis using machine learning and multimodal biosignals.

In-depths lecture: Lowering Barriers to Open Research: Cedalion as an Example from Neuroimaging

Abstract >

Luis Oala, Fraunhofer HHI & Dotphoton

Luis works on composable systems for measuring, optimizing and exchanging data states across the entire data generating process in machine learning. In regular intervals, he shares his ideas through computer code and longer texts spanning topics such as data optimization [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], ML data formats [1, 2, 3] or measurement tools for ML systems [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. He also enjoys promoting opportunities for community. He helped initiate machine learning venues such as Data-Centric Machine Learning Research (DMLR) and AI for Good and co-chaired conferences such as ICLR, the DMLR workshop series or ML4H. He is Head of Machine Learning at Swiss company Dotphoton and a PhD research scientist at the Department of Artificial Intelligence of Wojciech Samek at Fraunhofer HHI in Berlin, Germany.

In-depths lecture: A Fever Dream of Machine Learning Framework Composability: Croissant and Beyond

Abstract >

Professor Sonja Schimmler, Technische Universität Berlin & Fraunhofer FOKUS

Sonja Schimmler is a visiting professor for research data infrastructure at Technische Universität Berlin. At the same time, she is research group lead at Fraunhofer FOKUS.
She is involved in various third-party funded projects. She is engaged in the NFDI initiative (National Research Data Infrastructure), as spokesperson for the NFDI4DataScience consortium and the Common Infrastructures section, and as co-spokesperson of the Base4NFDI initiative and the NFDI4Cat consortium. She is also active at the Weizenbaum Institute, as head of the research group »Digitalization and Opening up of Science«.
Her research focuses on the digitalization and opening up of science. She puts a special emphasis on research data infrastructures. She studied computer science at the Technical University of Munich and at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) and received her doctorate at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich.

Lecture: Data Infrastructures and Data Competencies: The Key for a Cooperative Data Culture

Abstract >

Professor Elena Simperl, King’s College London

Elena Simperl is a professor of computer science at King’s College London in the United Kingdom. She is also a Fellow of the British Computer Society and of Royal Society of Arts, as well as a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow.

She has a doctoral degree in computer science (Dr. rer. nat.) from the Free University of Berlin and a diploma in computer science (Dipl. Inform.) from the Technical University of Munich. Before joining King’s in 2020, she held positions at Southampton, as well as in Germany and Austria. http://elenasimperl.eu

Keynote: Open data infrastructure in the age of generative AI

Abstract >

Dr Britta Steinke, Technische Universität Berlin

Dr Britta Steinke leads the Research Data Management Service Center (SZF) at TU Berlin. She advises researchers on all aspects of research data management, from planning and documentation to archiving and sharing. Her work focuses on practical training formats, sustainable infrastructure, and the development of institutional strategies.

Hands-on session: FAIR Data in Practice: Finding and Reusing Research Data

Abstract >