Prof. Dr. Ulrike von Luxburg

I am a professor for computer science, with research focus on the theory of machine learning.

Quick links:  

• Publications
• My free online lectures on youtube: Statistical Machine Learning (2020), Mathematics for Machine Learning (2020), Theoretische Informatik (2021, in German)    
• I will be hiring a PhD student and/or a Postdoc to start in fall 2025, to either work on theoretical foundations of explainable machine learning or on deep learning theory. If you are interested for a PhD position, please apply to the International Max Planck Research School for Intelligent Systems or the Ellis program (application deadline Nov 15 for both programs). Postdocs can send their applications to me directly (please check out our "application" page for instructions).

Research. My research focus is on theoretical questions about unsupervised machine learning: understanding implicit biases and assumptions of machine learning algorithms, giving formal guarantees to some algorithms, and proving how other algorithms systematically fail. In particular, we currently ask all these questions in the context of explainable machine learning.   Publications     Our research seminar     Research questions    

I am coordinating the research cluster Machine learning: New Perspectives for Science (jointly with Philipp Berens), and the CZS Institute for AI and Law (together with Michele Finck and Stefan Thomas).

Teaching See our teaching page for links to lectures, topics for Bachelor / Master theses, comments about taking exams, writing a thesis, etc.

Public AI discussion. In the city of Tübingen, and also in the wider national and international context, there is an ongoing discussion about research in artificial intelligence and its impact on future society. I find this discussion important and actively participate(d) in quite a number of events. Most notably, the exhibition "Cyber and the City: Künstliche Intelligenz bewegt Tübingen".


The exhibition was conceptualized and created over the course of two years by two colleagues in cultural anthropology (Thomas Thiemeyer, Tim Schaffarczik), myself, the local city museum (Guido Szymanska and Wiebke Ratzeburg), and 36 master students of cultural anthropology and machine learning. The exhibition was running 2023/2024 in the Tübingen City Museum and in the end even received the German Communicator Award of the German Research Foundation / Stifterverband. Here is the exhibition webpage by the students.

Consider watching my Kinderuni lecture on youtube: ``Warum ist künstlich Intelligenz nicht immer gerecht?'' (Why is AI not always fair?)

Funding and transparency: see here.

Code and data sets : see here.

Job applications (interns, PhD students, Postdocs): see here.