2023 Alfried Krupp Prize

The Alfried Krupp Prize

Since 1986, the Alfried Krupp Prize has been presented annually to young scientists who hold a first professorship at a German university in the fields of natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the most highly endowed awards for young scientists and has so far been presented to 43 outstanding young researchers.

The award, which is endowed with EUR 1.1 million, is intended to enable the award winners to create an improved working environment and advance their work in research and teaching over a period of five years, independent of public funding.

The winner of the 2023 Alfried Krupp Prize: Prof. Dr. Zeynep Akata Schulz

Prof. Dr. Zeynep Akata Schulz (37), born in Turkey, was appointed to the professorship for Explainable Machine Learning at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Tübingen (Germany) in 2019, which was established as part of the Cluster of Excellence “Machine Learning: New Perspectives for Science”. She studied Technical Informatics at Trakya University in Turkey, Media Informatics at RWTH Aachen University in Germany and received her doctorate from the University of Grenoble in France. After completing her doctorate, she researched machine vision and learning as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken (Germany) from 2014 to 2017. In addition, she was a visiting researcher at the University of California in Berkeley (USA) at the time. Between 2017 and 2019, Akata worked as both an assistant professor as well as scientific director of the UvA-Bosch Delta Lab at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), where she focussed on the foundations of deep learning. She was also head of research at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken (Germany).

The work of Zeynep Akata Schulz has already been recognised with high-ranking grants and awards, including the EVCA Young Researcher Award (2022), the German Pattern Recognition Award of the German Society for Pattern Recognition (2021), the “ERC Starting Grant” of the European Research Council (2019) and the Lise Meitner Award for Excellent Women in Computer Science of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (2014). She is regularly invited as a keynote speaker, for example at the UAI Conference, the Helmholtz AI Conference, University College London, Facebook AI Research and Google. Zeynep Akata Schulz is a member of the Tübingen AI Centre at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, among other things.

About the research conducted by Zeynep Akata Schulz

The research focus of Zeynep Akata Schulz is on explainable machine learning. Explainable machine learning provides explanations so that people can comprehend how and why an artificial intelligence (AI) has made a certain decision. This strengthens trust in AI, enables users to recognise errors and contributes to making responsible decisions. This approach could be used in finance, healthcare, law and other areas where it is important for humans to understand the decisions made by AI systems.

One method of machine learning is deep learning. Modern computer algorithms use deep learning models to master complex tasks and solve high-dimensional problems. However, these models are not transparent and cannot present their decisions in an explainable manner. Prof. Dr. Akata Schulz is working on developing transparent algorithms that can make comprehensible decisions. To do so, she uses models of “weakly supervised learning” – an approach in machine learning in which incomplete or unspecific information is used. This allows for training with unstructured or unqualified data. The method is useful for efficiently utilising large data sets and for training models with limited resources.

Prof. Dr. Akata Schulz’s vision is to create a self-explaining artificial intelligence that can learn with minimal feedback and interact reliably as well as transparently with human beings. This can be particularly relevant for mobile robotics and intelligent vehicles.

Her peers describe Prof. Dr. Akata as an exceptional scientist: In addition to her scientific achievements and publications – she has already been cited 15,000 times in specialist circles – she is also involved in teaching and supervising students as well as doctoral candidates.

“It is a great pleasure for us to present Zeynep Akata Schulz with this year’s Alfried Krupp Prize”, says Prof. Ursula Gather, Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Krupp Foundation. “Explainable machine learning has the potential to improve our quality of life and to find innovative solutions to complex problems. It will change our lives. The approach of Zeynep Akata Schulz to explore machine learning without the use of categorised training data, but using multiple data modalities, as well as to strengthen trust in the technology, plays a decisive role in the application options and in its social acceptance. In this field, she is one of the best in the world. The Award supports her on this path.”

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Ursula Gather, Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Krupp Foundation

Ceremonial act: Impressions from the event

The Alfried Krupp Prize is presented every autumn at Villa Hügel. Prof. Ursula Gather, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, welcomed the guests and opened the evening with a speech. Thomas Kufen, Lord Mayor of the City of Essen, followed with a welcoming address. The EUR 1 million award was presented by Gonca Türkeli-Dehnert, State Secretary at the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). The keynote speech entitled “Von Maschinen, Majestäten und Mirakeln. Geschichten aus 150 Jahren Villa Hügel” (“Of machines, majesties and miracles. Stories from 150 years of Villa Hügel”) was delivered by Prof. Dr. Ralf Stremmel, Head of the Krupp Historical Archive.

Laudatio

The evening was framed by the laudatio for Zeynep Akata Schulz, which was presented as a film and showed the perspectives of her colleagues: Prof. Dr. Matthias Bethge, Director of the Tübingen AI Center (Germany), Prof. Dr. Bernt Schiele, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Dr. Stephan Alaniz, Postdoctoral Researcher, and Karsten Roth, PhD Researcher, provided an insight into the collaboration with Zeynep Akata Schulz, explained her research area and outlined the personality of the exceptional scientist.