Institute of Artificial Intelligence

Prof. Dr. Birte Glimm

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. In 2019 our project "Do it yourself, but not alone: Companion-Technology for Home Improvement" was awarded a price for cooperations between science and industry (Kooperationspreis Wissenschaft-Wirtschaft). In 2017 I received a Google Faculty Research Award and I was honoured with the Mileva Einstein-Marić-Prize. 

Before coming to Ulm, 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.

Further Information

My scientific interest is mainly in knowledge representation and automatic reasoning. I develop, implement and optimize algorithms for automatic reasoning in expressive description logics and analyze their complexity. For example, I have developed various optimizations for tableau algorithms, novel procedures for combining tableau and saturation-based algorithms and algorithms for answering queries. Our new abstraction and refinement procedure allows conclusions to be drawn about knowledge bases with very large amounts of data. We are also working on providing autonomous vehicles with dynamic knowledge of map data, where a particular challenge lies in the high dynamics. Our research on the generation of explanations in natural language allows the automated derivations to be made comprehensible.

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.

  • since 2019 Chair of the Exam Board Computer Science (for BSc+Msc Computer Science, BSc+Msc Media Informatics, BSc+Msc Software Engineering, MSc Artificial Intelligence)
  • since 2014 Chair of the Admissions Board Cognitive Systems
  • since 2022 Deputy Ombudsperson Good Research Practice
  • since 2019 Deputy of the Exam Board Cognitive Systems
  • seit 2022 Member Dr. rer. nat. PhD Commission
  • 2019-2022 Chair of the Exam Board Cognitive Systems
  • 2018-2021 Member of the Study Commission Cognitive Systems
  • SoSe 2021 Member of the Study Commission Computer Science
  • 2015-2018 Programme Coordination MSc Cognitive Systems

Projects and seminars in the area of Semantic Web and Artificial Intelligence

Lectures

SS 2023: Programming Concepts for Cognitive Systems, Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies

WS 2022/2023: Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence, Künstliche Intelligenz und Neuroinformatik

SS 2022: Programming Concepts for Cognitive Systems

WS 2021/2022: research semester

SS 2021: Programming Concepts for Cognitive Systems, Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies

WS 2020/2021: Web Engineering

SS 2020: Programming Concepts for Cognitive Systems

WS 2019/2020: Web Engineering, Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies

SS 2019: Programming Concepts for Cognitive Systems

WS 2018/2019: Web Engineering, Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies

SS 2018: Einführung in die Informatik, Programming Concepts for Cognitive Systems

WS 2017/2018: Web Engineering, Programming Concepts for Cognitive Systems

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

WS 2016/2017: Introduction to Computer Science for Psychologists, Web Engineering

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

SS 2013: Algorithmen in der Wissensrepräsentation

WS 2012/2013: Semantic Web Grundlagen

SS 2012: Algorithmen in der Wissensrepräsentation

WS 2011/2012: Semantic Web Grundlagen

2020 Best Paper Award, Haonan Qiu, Adel Ayara and Birte Glimm, International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development
2020 Best Research Track Senior Programme Committee Member, International Semantic Web Conference
2019 Kooperationspreis Wissenschaft-Wirtschaft
2019 Best Reproducibility Award, Andreas Steigmiller and Birte Glimm, International Semantic Web Conference
2019 Best Research Paper Award runner-up, Andreas Steigmiller and Birte Glimm, International Semantic Web Conference
2017 Google Faculty Research Award
2017 Mileva Einstein-Marić-Preis 
2016 Best Resources Paper, B. Parsia, N. Matentzoglu, R. S. Goncalves, B. Glimm and A. Steigmiller, International Semantic Web Conference
2015 OWL Reasoner Evaluation Competition, 6 Tracks (Reasoner Konclude: 4 × 1. and 2 × 2. prize, Reasoner HermiT: 1 × 2. and 4 × 3. prize)
2014 ISWC Best Reviewer Research Track, International Semantic Web Conference
2014 Kurt Gödel medal, 1. FLoC Olympic Games
2014 OWL Reasoner Evaluation Competition, 6 Tracks (Reasoner Konclude: 5 × 1. and 1 × 2. prize, Reasoner HermiT: 1 × 2. and 1 × 3. prize)
2013 OWL Reasoner Evaluation Competition, 9 Tracks (Reasoner Konclude: 3×1., 2×2. and 2 × 3. prize, Reasoner HermiT: 1 × 1., 2 × 2. and 1 × 3. prize)
2011 Best Programme Committee Member Finalist, International Semantic Web Conference
2010 Best Research Paper Nominee, Birte Glimm, Ian Horrocks, Boris Motik and Giorgos Stoilos, International Semantic Web Conference
2008 Steve Furber Medal for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Computer Science
09.04–09.07 Doctoral scholarship of the Foundation of German Business
09.04–09.07 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council studentship
2004 Best computer science degree in 2004 at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
04.02–07.04 Scholarship of the Foundation of German Business

  • Moritz Illich (2021-)
  • Haonan Qiu (submitted 2021, defense pending)
  • Andreas Steigmiller (finished 2016, summa cum laude, dissertation award Thomas Gessmann-Stiftung)
  • Ilianna Kollia (external at the National Technical University of Athens, finished 2014)

Publications

2015

53.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Glimm, Birte
Pay-As-You-Go Description Logic Reasoning by Coupling Tableau and Saturation Procedures
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 54 :535--592
2015
DOI:10.1613/jair.4897
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2015/StGl15b.pdf
52.
Glimm, Birte; Kazakov, Yevgeny; Kollia, Ilianna; Stamou, Giorgos
Lower and Upper Bounds for SPARQL Queries over OWL Ontologies
Proceedings of the 28th International Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2015)
Publisher: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
2015
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2015/GKKS15a.pdf
51.
Ulmschneider, Klaus; Michelberger, Bernd; Glimm, Birte; Mutschler, Bela; Reichert, Manfred
On Maintaining Semantic Networks: Challenges, Algorithms, Use Cases
International Journal of Web Information Systems, 11 (3) :291-326
2015
DOI:10.1108/IJWIS-04-2015-0014
50.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Glimm, Birte; Liebig, Thorsten
Completion Graph Caching for Expressive Description Logics
Proceedings of the 28th International Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2015)
Publisher: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
2015
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2015/StGL15a.pdf
49.
Glimm, Birte; Kazakov, Yevgeny; Kollia, Ilianna; Stamou, Giorgos
Lower and Upper Bounds for SPARQL Queries over OWL Ontologies
Proceedings of the 29th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2015)
Publisher: AAAI Press
2015
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2015/GKKS15a.pdf
48.
Behnke, Gregor; Ponomaryov, Denis; Schiller, Marvin R. G.; Bercher, Pascal; Nothdurft, Florian; Glimm, Birte; Biundo, Susanne
Coherence Across Components in Cognitive Systems – One Ontology to Rule Them All
Proceedings of the 25th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2015), Page 1442-1449
IJCAI 2015
Buenos Aires
July 25th to July 31st
Publisher: AAAI Press
2015
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2015/BPSB15a.pdf
47.
Behnke, Gregor; Schiller, Marvin R. G.; Ponomaryov, Denis; Nothdurft, Florian; Bercher, Pascal; Minker, Wolfgang; Glimm, Birte; Biundo, Susanne
A Unified Knowledge Base for Companion-Systems - A Case Study in Mixed-Initiative Planning
Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Companion Technology (ISCT 2015), Page 43--48
First International Symposium on Companion Technology (ISCT 2015)
Ulm, Germany
23. - 25. September 2015
2015
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2015/Behnke15MIPDiscussion.pdf
46.
Behnke, Gregor; Bercher, Pascal; Biundo, Susanne; Glimm, Birte; Ponomaryov, Denis; Schiller, Marvin R. G.
Integrating Ontologies and Planning for Cognitive Systems
Proceedings of the 28th International Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2015)
Publisher: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
2015
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2015/BBBG15a.pdf

2014

45.
Glimm, Birte; Kazakov, Yevgeny; Liebig, Thorsten; Tran, Trung-Kien; Vialard, Vincent
Abstraction Refinement for Ontology Materialization
, Proceedings of the 27th International Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2014)Volume1193fromCEUR Workshop Proceedings, Page 180-195
Publisher: CEUR-WS.org
2014
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/GKLT14a.pdf
44.
Glimm, Birte; Kazakov, Yevgeny; Liebig, Thorsten; Tran, Trung-Kien; Vialard, Vincent
Abstraction Refinement for Ontology Materialization
, Proceedings of the 13th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2014)Volume8797fromLecture Notes in Computer Science, Page 180-195
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
2014
DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-11915-1_12
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/GKLT14b.pdf
43.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Glimm, Birte; Liebig, Thorsten
Coupling Tableau Algorithms for Expressive Description Logics with Completion-based Saturation Procedures
In Stéphane Demri, Deepak Kapur and Christoph Weidenbach, Editor, Proceedings of the 7th International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR 2014)Volume8562fromLecture Notes in Computer Science, Page 449-463
In Stéphane Demri, Deepak Kapur and Christoph Weidenbach, Editor
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
2014
DOI:10.1007/978-3-319-08587-6_35
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/StGL14a.pdf
42.
Glimm, Birte; Horrocks, Ian; Motik, Boris; Stoilos, Giorgos; Wang, Zhe
HermiT: An OWL 2 Reasoner
Journal of Automated Reasoning (JAR), 53 (3) :245-269
2014
DOI:10.1007/s10817-014-9305-1
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/GHMS14a.pdf
41.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Liebig, Thorsten; Glimm, Birte
Konclude: System Description
Journal of Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web, 27 (1)
2014
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/StLG14a.pdf
40.
Michelberger, Bernd; Ulmschneider, Klaus; Glimm, Birte; Mutschler, Bela; Reichert, Manfred
Maintaining Semantic Networks: Challenges and Algorithms
Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Information Integration and Web-Based Applications & Services (iiWAS 2014)fromACM International Conference Proceedings
Publisher: ACM
2014
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/MUGM14a.pdf
39.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Glimm, Birte; Liebig, Thorsten
Optimised Absorption for Expressive Description Logics
In Meghyn Bienvenu, Magdalena Ortiz, Riccardo Rosati, and Mantas Simkus, Editor, Proceedings of the 27th International Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2014)Volume1193fromCEUR Workshop Proceedings
In Meghyn Bienvenu, Magdalena Ortiz, Riccardo Rosati, and Mantas Simkus, Editor
Publisher: CEUR-WS.org
2014
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/StGL14b.pdf
38.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Glimm, Birte; Liebig, Thorsten
Reasoning with Nominal Schemas through Absorption
Journal of Automated Reasoning, 53 (4) :351-405
2014
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
DOI:10.1007/s10817-014-9310-4
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2014/StGL14c.pdf

2013

37.
Kollia, Ilianna; Glimm, Birte
Optimizing SPARQL Query Answering over OWL Ontologies
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR), 48 :253-303
September 2013
DOI:10.1613/jair.3872
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2013/KoGl13a.pdf
36.
Glimm, Birte; Kazakov, Yevgeny; Kollia, Ilianna; Stamou, Giorgos
Using the TBox to Optimise SPARQL Queries
Proceedings of the 2013 International Description Logic Workshop (DL 2013)
Publisher: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
2013
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2013/GKKS13a.pdf
35.
Schiller, Marvin R. G.; Glimm, Birte
Towards Explicative Inference for OWL
Proceedings of the 2013 International Description Logic Workshop (DL 2013)
Publisher: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
2013
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2013/ScGl13a.pdf
34.
Cheptsov, Alexey; Tenschert, Axel; Schmidt, Paul; Glimm, Birte; Matthesius, Mauricio; Liebig, Thorsten
Introducing a New Scalable Data-as-a-Service Cloud Platform for Enriching Traditional Text Mining Techniques by Integrating Ontology Modelling and Natural Language Processing
In Axel Tenschert and Alexey Cheptsov, Editor, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Big Web Data (BigWebData 2013)fromLecture Notes in Computer Science
In Axel Tenschert and Alexey Cheptsov, Editor
Publisher: Springer
2013
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2013/CTSG13a.pdf
33.
Chaussecourte, Pierre; Glimm, Birte; Horrocks, Ian; Motik, Boris; Pierre, Laurent
The Energy Management Adviser at EDF
, Proceedings of the 12th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2013)Volume8219fromLecture Notes in Computer Science, Page 49-64
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
2013
DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-41338-4_4
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2013/CGHM13a.pdf
32.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Glimm, Birte; Liebig, Thorsten
Nominal Schema Absorption
Proceedings of the 23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2013)
Publisher: AAAI Press/The MIT Press
2013
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2013/StGL13a.pdf
31.
Steigmiller, Andreas; Glimm, Birte; Liebig, Thorsten
Extending Absorption to Nominal Schemas
Proceedings of the 26th International Description Logic Workshop (DL 2013)
Publisher: CEUR Workshop Proceedings
2013
File:pdfhttps://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2013/StGL13b.pdf

2012

30.
Kollia, Ilianna; Glimm, Birte
Cost Based Query Ordering over OWL Ontologies
, Proceedings of the 11th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2012)Volume7649fromLecture Notes in Computer Science, Page 231-246
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
November 2012
DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-35176-1_15
File:pdfhttp://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2012/KoGl12b.pdf
29.
Nikitina, Nadeschda; Glimm, Birte
Hitting the Sweetspot: Economic Rewriting of Knowledge Bases
, Proceedings of the 11th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2012)Volume7649fromLecture Notes in Computer Science, Page 394-409
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
November 2012
DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-35176-1_25
File:pdfhttp://www.uni-ulm.de/fileadmin/website_uni_ulm/iui.inst.090/Publikationen/2012/NiGl12a.pdf