Since July 2011 I work at the University of Ulm within the Institute of Artificial Intelligence. Until June 2017  as a junior professor and since then as full professor. Before that, I was a research assistant in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, where I worked in the Information Systems Group, mainly on developing algorithms for automated reasoning in expressive Description Logics and on the implementation of the HermiT reasoner.

I did my PhD in Manchester in the Information Management Group under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ian Horrocks and Prof. Dr. Uli Sattler and I was honoured with the Best Thesis Award from the School of Computer Science at Manchester University in 2008. From September 2001 until July 2004 I studied Computer Science in the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences and I received my bachelor degree with an award for the best degree.

Before studying Computer Science, I worked for 3.5 years in Industry and did another degree in Communication Design.

My main research interests are knowledge representation and reasoning. In particular, I enjoy developing and implementing algorithms and optimisations for reasoning in expressive description logics. I implement the developed techniques in the HermiT reasoner.

Together with my doctoral student Andreas Steigmiller I develop optimisations for tableau algorithms and novel procedures that combine tableau and saturation-based algorithms. The latter improve the reasoning performance for ontologies that only use a few constructors from more expressive Description Logics. Together with my doctoral student Trung-Kien Tran I develop a novel abstraction and refinement procedure for reasoning with ontologies that contain a large amount of data. With my doctoral student Klaus Ulmschneider I work on applying Semantic Web technologies in the context of innovation management. 

I am an editor of the SPARQL 1.1 Entailment Regimes specification, developed within the SPARQL Working Group of the W3C. Entailment regimes extend SPARQL to work with semantics other than simple entailment, e.g., RDF and RDFS semantics and OWL Direct and RDF-Based Semantics. I am also an editor of the OWL 2 Web Ontology Language Conformance specification, which describes the conditions that OWL 2 tools must satisfy in order to be conformant with the language specification.

SS 2017: Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies, Einführung in die Informatik

WS 2016/2017: Introduction to Computer Science for Psychologists

SS 2016: Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies

WS 2015/2016: Introduction to Computer Science for Psychologists

SS 2015: Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies

WS 2013/2014: Einführung in die Informatik, Semantic Web Grundlagen (only in German)

SS 2013: Algorithmen in der Wissensrepräsentation (only in German)

WS 2012/2013: Semantic Web Grundlagen (only in German)

SS 2012: Algorithmen in der Wissensrepräsentation (only in German)

WS 2011/2012: Semantic Web Grundlagen (only in German)

• DFG Project: Processing of Large Amounts of Data in Ontologies via Abstraction and Refinement (2015-2017)
• Project A2 "Knowledge Modelling" within the Collaborative Research Center SFB/TRR 62 "A Companion-Technology for Cognitive Technical Systems" (2013-2016)
• DAAD Programme des Projektbezogenen Personenaustauschs (PPP) "Automatic Generation of Description Logic Knowledge Bases" with the National Technical University of Athens (2013-2014)
• KMU-innovativ project GraphScale in collaboration with derivo GmbH (2012-2014)
• Dynamic Query Planning for Querying Ontologies (2012)

• Markus Brenner
• Trung-Kien Tran
• Klaus Ulmschneider
• Ilianna Kollia (external at the National Technical University of Athens, finished 2014)
• Andreas Steigmiller (finished 2016, summa cum laude, dissertation award Thomas Gessmann-Stiftung)

• Editor of the special issue "Semantic Web" of the German Journal on Artificial Intelligence
• Doctoral Consortium Co-Chair of the 14th Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR) 2014
• General Chair of the International Description Logic Workshop (DL) 2013
• Program Chair of the German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI) 2012
• Satellite Events Chair of the International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR) 2012
• Poster & Demos Chair of the International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) 2012
• Member of the steering committee of the International Description Logic Workshop (DL, 2010-2011, 2013-2016)
• Senior Program Committee member of KR2016, ISWC 2015, AAAI 2012
• Program Committee member of IJCAR 2016,  KR 2014, ECAI 2014, ISWC 2014, DL 2014, ISWC 2013, AAAI 2013, HT 2013, RR 2012, DL 2012, ISWC 2012, Reasoning Web 2012, WIMS 2012, ESWC 2012, KR 2012, ISWC 2011, JIST 2011, IJCAI 2011, DL 2011, ISWC 2010 Demos&Posters, AAAI 2010, DL 2009, IJCAI 2009, ISWC 2009, ESWC 2009 Poster and Demos, ECAI 2008, ISWC 2007 and DL 2007
• Reviewer for the conferences and workshops: Tableaux 2013, CADE 2011, WWW 2010, WoLLIC 2010, KR 2010, IJCAR 2010, WWW 2009, ESSLLI 2009, KR 2008, ISWC 2008, WWW 2008, DL 2008, IJCAI 2007, CADE 2007, ISWC 2007, ESWC 2007, DL 2007, RR 2007, DL 2006, CADE 2005, ISWC 2005, ESWC 2005, LPAR 2005, DL 2005, OWL ED 2005, M4M 2005, ODBASE 2005, and DL 2004
• Reviewer for the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, Journal of Web Semantics, Journal of Symbolic Computation, Journal on Data Semantics, ACM Transactions on the Web