Hi, I am Michael
Currently, I am a Research Scientist at Yahoo’s DSP, where I apply machine learning to large-scale advertising systems. Day to day this means building and maintaining ML pipelines with AWS SageMaker and Apache Airflow, analysing data at scale. It is a role that keeps you close to the full stack, from data to deployment.
Before Yahoo, I was a Senior Specialist at PD - Berater der öffentlichen Hand GmbH, advising the German public sector on AI adoption and strategy.
My research background is in machine learning theory. My PhD focused on fairness in machine learning — how automated decision-making affects people’s lives, and whether large-scale systems can be designed to treat groups of individuals fairly. Given how widely ML is deployed today, I find the question more relevant than ever.
I completed my PhD at the Theory of Machine Learning group at the University of Tübingen, supervised by Prof. Dr. Ulrike von Luxburg.
Interests
- Natural Language Processing
- Fairness in Machine Learning as well as Explainability
- Learning Theory
- Comparison-Based Machine Learning
Education
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Ph.D. in Machine Learning, 2022
University of Tübingen
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MSc in Mathematics and Economics, 2017
University of Cologne
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BSc in Mathematics and Economics, 2014
University of Cologne
Publications
Are Two Heads the Same as One? Identifying Disparate Treatment in Fair Neural Networks
Leveling Down in Computer Vision: Pareto Inefficiencies in Fair Deep Classifiers
Insights into Ordinal Embedding Algorithms: A Systematic Evaluation
Important to Me
Deutsche SchülerAkademien. Every summer students interested in growing and learning come together for three weeks and they code, they create, sing, dance, … simply do whatever challenges them. Two times, I offered a course on ML and Renewable Energy, and once, I organized the overall academy. I can only recommend to check it out, either as a high-school student or as a university student or PhD for offering courses: https://www.schuelerakademien.de.
Student Exchange. In 2008/2009 I spent a whole year in Maryland in the U.S. as an exchange student because I was granted the PPP scholarship from the Bundestag. I encourage everyone to apply here!
I was very lucky to be supported by Partnership International e.V. during my exchange year. Ever since I came back, I was part of PI and we have done lots of voluntary work together. If you are interested in hosting an exhange student yourself, or if your children are interested in going on an exchange, check out our website.