Prof. Dr. Jennifer Hannig has been appointed to a newly established professorship for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Department of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Data Processing (MND) for the winter semester. The professorship combines research at the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence, hessian.AI, with research and teaching at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen (THM), thus making an important contribution to the further development of AI research in Hesse.
Hannig has been involved in numerous AI research projects at THM of Applied Sciences in recent years. Since 2018, she has been a postdoctoral researcher at the interdisciplinary Friedberg Centre of Competence for Information Technology (KITE) . Her research focuses on applied AI. Particularly in sensitive fields such as medicine, it is crucial to develop interpretable decision support systems. Hannig investigates how AI, often perceived as an opaque "black box," can be made explainable. In 2024, she secured funding from the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) for THM, enabling her to establish an independent junior research group: "TimeXAI." As its leader, Hannig investigates methods of Explainable AI (XAI) for classifying time series, with a focus on the human interpretability of the explanations.
Hannig's appointment is to a so-called hessian.AI professorship, established at THM . The Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence has set itself the goal of establishing Hesse as a leading European region for AI research and the development of AI-based applications in science and industry. "We look forward to collaborating with Prof. Dr. Jennifer Hannig. Her research focus, particularly on explainable AI and in the field of medicine, strengthens the center in an outstanding way," explain its spokespersons, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Mira Mezini and Prof. Dr. Kristian Kersting.
Jennifer Hannig's academic career began with studies in bioinformatics at Goethe University Frankfurt. Following her Bachelor's and Master's degrees, she pursued her doctorate at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science there. Her dissertation addresses mathematical modeling and method development in the field of computational systems biology. After receiving her doctorate in 2018, she joined the KITE research group at THM in Friedberg, where she remains a member.
Because she has not yet left the academic world – which is a requirement for a professorship at a university of applied sciences – she holds a so-called tandem professorship: She works half-time as a Technical Expert at Bender GmbH & Co. KG in Grünberg. There, she will apply her expertise in AI-based time series analysis to innovatively develop existing solutions and shape new, future-oriented technologies. "We are delighted that we can further develop such a strong young researcher together with Bender and retain her at THM ," explains THMPresident Prof. Dr. Matthias Willems.