News & Awards

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 11-12-2015 Per Mikroschwimmer zur Magenwand Ein mit Enzymen beschichteter Mikropropeller verflüssigt lokal die Magenschleimhaut, um sie zu durchdringen Helicobacter pylori macht es vor. Das im menschlichen Magen häufig vorkommende Bakterium versteht es, sich auch durch die zähe Magenschleimhaut hindurchzubewegen. Zu diesem Zweck scheidet es Substanzen aus, die den pH-Wert ihrer Umgebung verändern und damit den gelartigen Schleim verflüssigen. Forscher des Max-Planck-Instituts für Intelligente Systeme in Stuttgart haben dieses Prinzip aufgegriffen und nach ihm ein künstliches Mikrovehikel geschaffen, das ebenfalls viskose Schleimhäute durchdringen kann. Die Forscher verbinden damit eine konkrete Hoffnung: Eines Tages könnten solche Schwimmer vielleicht pharmazeutische Wirkstoffe direkt an die Magenwand transportieren – und dort für eine effektive Aufnahme in die Blutbahn sorgen. Debora Schamel Peer Fischer Jeong Hyeon-Ho

Empirical Inference Award 09-12-2015 Jakob Zscheischler: Köppen Award 2015, awarded by the Cluster of Excellence CliSAP, for his doctoral dissertation submitted at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) in 2014.

Empirical Inference News 09-12-2015 Köppen Award 2015 for Machine Learning in Climate Research Excellent doctoral dissertation Dr. Jakob Zscheischler is to receive this year’s Wladimir Peter Köppen Award. The Cluster of Excellence CliSAP selected the mathematician for his excellent doctoral dissertation submitted at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) in 2014. His work was rated trendsetting by the jurors who found its thematic and methodical approach particularly original. Jakob Zscheischler completed his dissertation in Germany at the German Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen. Jakob Zscheischler

Probabilistic Numerics News 01-12-2015 NIPS Oral for Maren Mahsereci PhD student will present her work on optimization for deep learning Maren Mahsereci's paper on probabilistic line searches for stochastic optimization has been selected for a full oral presentation at the flagship conference of machine learning. Maren Mahsereci Philipp Hennig

News 30-11-2015 Inauguration of the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems Inauguration Ceremony in Tübingen (From left to right): Prof. Dr. Bradley Nelson (ETH Zürich), Dr. Stefan Schaal (MPI for Intelligent Systems), Christine Schraner Burgener (Swiss Ambassador to Germany), Prof. Dr. Lino Guzella (President ETH Zürich), Prof. Dr. Martin Stratmann (President Max Planck Society), Theresia Bauer (Science Minister of Baden-Württemberg), Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schölkopf MPI for Intelligent Systems and Co-Director of the CLS), Prof. Dr. Thomas Hofmann (ETH Zürich, Co-Director of the CLS).

Perceiving Systems Award 20-11-2015 Jonas Wulff. Outstanding Reviewer Award. ICCV 2015.

News 11-11-2015 Learning Control Workshop Researchers from ETH Zürich and MPI for Intelligent Systems come together to exchange ideas and discuss challenges for Learning Control Albeit Learning Control is not uniquely defined, we understand Learning Control as the rather broad research area that lies at the intersection of Machine Learning and Automatic Control. This includes, but is not limited to data-driven approaches for control design, adaptive control, dual control, machine learning for control, online learning, active learning for control, reinforcement learning, and applications of learning control. Ludovic Righetti Sebastian Trimpe Melanie Zeilinger

Empirical Inference News 03-11-2015 One of the best science videos of the year! 2nd prize at the "Fast Forward Science 2015" Competition The movie "Light gets on your nerves" was financed and coordinated by the Max Planck Society and pictures the research of the Brain-Computer-Interfaces group at our institute. Moritz Grosse-Wentrup Bernhard Schölkopf Tatiana Fomina Sebastian Weichwald Timm Meyer

Award 28-10-2015 Barbara Haller: 1st Prize at the "Thesis in Three" Competition in the PhD category

Physical Intelligence Award 28-10-2015 Chantal Göttler: 1st Prize at the "Thesis in Three" Competition in the M.Sc. category.

Empirical Inference Award 28-10-2015 Leonardo Casarsa: Second prize, "T3 Award - Thesis in 3" - category Master students. Title of the presentation: "Can computers treat sick brains?"

Award 28-10-2015 Paolo Malgaretti: 1st Prize at the "Thesis in Three" Competition in the Postdoc category

Empirical Inference Award 28-10-2015 Vinay Jayaram: Second prize, "T3 Award - Thesis in 3" - category PhD students. Title of the presentation: "Why can't we control computers with our minds yet?"

News 28-10-2015 Surprise at the nanoscale: Silicon atoms jump after contact with metal Max Planck researchers from Stuttgart reveal unknown behaviour of semi-conductors at the nanoscale

News 28-10-2015 T3 Award at MPI.IS "Thesis in 3" Presenting research in a clear, concise and coherent way is an important skill for a successful academic career. Young researchers at MPI.IS were invited to show that they are able to summarise their Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD thesis or Postdoc project in three minutes and a maximum of three slides and win this year’s MPI IS “Thesis in Three” Award. The goal is to present their project, its context and significance in a general and understandable way, so any person regardless of their academic background can understand it. Vinay Jayaram Leonardo Casarsa Azevedo

News 27-10-2015 Roof topping ceremony New building in Tübingen The celebration of the roof topping ceremony ("Richtfest") on October 27, 2015 marked an important milestone for our institute. We were blessed with great weather, smiling robots and lot´s of interested people.

News 23-10-2015 Max Planck researchers present intelligent material systems at the 1st Kármán Conference Identifying the frontiers of science for the development of complex, adaptive material systems was the key focus of the five-day Kármán Conference ‘From molecular materials to complex adaptive systems’, which took place in Kasteel Vaalsbroek (Vaals /NL) last week. Being jointly organized by DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, RWTH Aachen University and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Stuttgart), the conference comprised a series of lectures given by international pioneers in this highly active field of research. Representing the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Stuttgart), Metin Sitti, Laura Na Liu, Peer Fischer and Heike Böhm have been involved as speakers. Peer Fischer Laura Na Liu Metin Sitti

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision Award 22-10-2015 Ali Osman Ulusoy, Andreas Geiger, and Michael J. Black. Best Paper Award, International Conference on 3D Vision (3DV), 2015, for the paper "Towards Probabilistic Volumetric Reconstruction using Ray Potentials."

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision News 22-10-2015 Ali Osman Ulusoy, Andreas Geiger and Michael Black receive 3DV 2015 Best Paper Award Ali Osman Ulusoy, Andreas Geiger and Michael Black receive the Best Paper Award at this years 3D Vision Conference for their paper "Towards Probabilistic Volumetric Reconstruction using Ray Potentials". Osman Ulusoy Andreas Geiger Michael Black

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision News 09-10-2015 Andreas Geiger and Chaohui Wang receive GCPR 2015 Best Paper Award Andreas Geiger receiving the GCPR 2015 Best Paper Award from Reinhard Koch (president of DAGM) and Bastian Leibe (general chair of GCPR 2015) for their paper "Joint 3D Object and Layout Inference from a single RGB-D Image". Andreas Geiger Chaohui Wang

Perceiving Systems Autonomous Vision Award 07-10-2015 Andreas Geiger and Chaohui Wang: GCPR 2015 Best Paper Award

Smart Nanoplasmonics News 24-09-2015 Nanotechnology: Tracking nanowalkers with light A tiny gold rod walks across a surface guided by DNA and can be tracked step by step Nanotechnology is taking its first steps. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have developed a gold nanocylinder equipped with discrete DNA strands as ‘feet’ that can walk across a DNA origami platform. They are able to trace the movements of the nanowalker, which is smaller than the optical resolution limit, by exciting plasmons in the gold nanocylinder. Plasmons are collective oscillations of numerous electrons. The excitation changes the ray of light, thus allowing the researchers to actually observe the nanowalker. Their main objective is to use such mobile plasmonic nanoobjects to study how miniscule particles interact with light. Laura Na Liu

Physical Intelligence News 04-09-2015 New adhesive mimics gecko biology thetartan.org It’s a typical afternoon at the zoo, and you find yourself looking at the exhibits of reptiles and amphibians in miniature imitations of wild and exotic habitats. At one of the displays you notice a gecko crawling on a window with superhero ease. Metin Sitti

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 02-09-2015 Fellow of the RSC Peer Fischer is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Peer Fischer

Perceiving Systems News 11-08-2015 4D Movies Capture Every Jiggle, Creating Realistic Digital Avatars Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems unveil the world’s first high-resolution 4D body scanner and software to model detailed soft-tissue motion. Everybody jiggles” according Dr. Michael Black, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Tübingen, Germany. We may not like it, but how we jiggle says a lot about who we are. Our soft tissue (otherwise known as fat and muscle) deforms, wobbles, waves, and bounces as we move. These motions may provide clues about our risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. They also make us look real. Digital characters either lack natural soft-tissue motion or require time-consuming animation to make them believable. Now researchers at MPI-IS have captured people and how they jiggle in exacting detail and have created realistic 3D avatars that bring natural body motions to digital characters. Michael Black Gerard Pons-Moll Javier Romero Naureen Mahmood

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 22-07-2015 Cover Article Our paper "Selectable nanopattern arrays for nanolithographic imprint and etch-mask applications" is the cover article for Advanced Science, May 6, 2015, DOI: 10.1002/advs.201500016 Jeong Hyeon-Ho Andrew Mark Mariana Alarcon-Correa Insook Kim Tung Chun Lee Peer Fischer

Empirical Inference News 13-07-2015 Tübingen is for two weeks the linchpin of the Machine Learning World MLSS 2015 Tübingen The 4th MLSS at Tübingen welcomes more than 110 participants, bringing together 35 nationalities from 19 different countries. Michael Hirsch Philipp Hennig Bernhard Schölkopf

Perceiving Systems News 10-07-2015 Third prize in the "Science2Start" Competition The Science2Start programme is geared towards scientists interested in founding start-ups and helps putting their business ideas in the field of life sciences into practice. Detection of new or rapidly evolving melanocytic lesions is crucial for early diagnosis and treatment of melanoma. Federica Bogo

Empirical Inference Award 06-07-2015 Matej Balog: Winner of Code Hunt programming contest at Microsoft Research PhD Summer School 2015.

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 03-07-2015 Featured highlight "Nanoswimmers: Designed for speed" Nature Nanotechnology 10, 568 (July 2015). Debora Schamel Peer Fischer

Perceiving Systems Award 01-07-2015 Federica Bogo: Third prize at the Science2Start competition.

Smart Nanoplasmonics Award 25-06-2015 Laura Na Liu: LIGHT2015 Young Women in Photonics Award: Fundamental Category

Physical Intelligence News 25-06-2015 Bacteria navigate microparticle swarms to target Latest publication in Scientific Reports In the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage, a submarine complete with crew is shrunk in size so that it can navigate through the human body, enabling the crew to perform surgery in the brain. This scenario remains in the realm of science fiction, and transporting a surgical team to a disease site will certainly remain fiction. Nevertheless, tiny submarines that could navigate through the body could be of great benefit: they could deliver drugs precisely to a target location, without causing side effects and stressing the whole organism. Metin Sitti Jiang Zhuang

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems Award 23-06-2015 Congratulations to Tian Qiu, Andrew Mark, Debora Schamel, and Alejandro Posada whose video entry won the “Microrobotics Design Challenge” at the Hamlyn Symposium in London. (June, 2015).

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 20-06-2015 Congratulations Alex Solovev, who just left the group as a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow, has been appointed a Professor at Fudan University under the 1000’s talents program. (June, 2015) Alexander Solovev

Empirical Inference News 18-06-2015 Machine Learning for climate research Jakob Zscheischler receives Otto Hahn Medal for his PhD thesis "A global analysis of extreme events and consequences for the terrestrial carbon cycle". Jakob Zscheischler

Empirical Inference Award 18-06-2015 Jakob Zscheischler: Otto-Hahn-Medal for his PhD Thesis "A global analysis of extreme events and consequences for the terrestrial carbon cycle", written at the MPI for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen and the MPI for Biogeochemistry, Jena.

Perceiving Systems Award 15-06-2015 Michael J. Black: elected foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, class for engineering sciences.

Physical Intelligence Award 15-06-2015 Wenqi Hu and Wendong Wang received the Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship.

Perceiving Systems News 15-06-2015 Michael J. Black elected as foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Three new members elected to the Academy Michael Black

Award 10-06-2015 Michael Hirscher: Hydrogen & Energy Award

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 08-06-2015 Fabian is interviewed by SWR 2 and the lab appears on Indonesian TV Fabian Adams starts his project in the group and talks about the potential of miniaturized, minimally invasive medical procedures: Fabian Adams

Physical Intelligence News 01-06-2015 Feature Robotics Medical spectrum.ieee.org Engineers explore ways to take robotics to the limits of size and function. In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, scientists at a U.S. laboratory shrink a submarine called Proteus and its human crew to microscopic size and then inject the vessel into an ailing scientist. Metin Sitti

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 27-05-2015 Featured "Hot Paper" Our paper "Dynamic Inclusion Complexes of Metal Nanoparticles Inside Nanocups" is the frontispiece for Ang. Chem. Int. Ed. 54, 6730-6734 (2015). Mariana Alarcon-Correa Tung Chun Lee Peer Fischer

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 13-05-2015 Dr. Andrew G. Mark awarded with Günter Petzow Prize 2015 Young scientist honoured for outstanding research in the field of material science Andrew G. Mark will be awarded this year’s Günter Petzow Prize from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. He will be honoured for his significant contribution to the development of a new nanofabrication technique for manufacturing, precisely and efficiently, hybrid multifunctional nanostructures with diverse 3D shapes. Andrew Mark

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 12-05-2015 Congratulations Eisenberger scholarship Dr. med. Fabian Adams is awarded a Ferdinand-Eisenberger fellowship. The scholarships frees Dr. Adams from his clinical duties (University Clinic, Univ. of Freiburg) so that he can devote the next 12 months to research here at the Micro Nano and Molecular Systems lab. Fabian Adams

Micro, Nano, and Molecular Systems News 10-05-2015 Congratulations Dr Jerome Roche leaves the group to start as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toulouse (May, 2015). Jerome Roche

Empirical Inference Award 06-05-2015 Katharina Muelling: Award for Extraordinary Scientific Achievement for her Ph.D. thesis by the "Freunde der TU Darmstadt".

News 28-04-2015 Laying of the cornerstone in Tübingen Vision of „Robotics Valley“ in the Neckar-Region The Max-Planck-Society constructs a new building for the Tübingen location of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. On 27. April 2015 the laying of the cornerstone for that ambitious project took place on the Max Planck Campus Tübingen. From 2017 onwards the new building will provide more than 250 workplaces for scientists and staff. The future-oriented research on intelligent systems will then be performed by scientists in four scientific departments. Bernhard Schölkopf Michael Black Stefan Schaal

Empirical Inference News 16-04-2015 Precise Imprecision Probabilistic Numerical Methods assign Uncertainty to Deterministic Computations With a new approach, Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems aim to make numerical algorithms more efficient. During the next five years, this research project will be supported by the Emmy-Noether-Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG) with nearly a million Euros. The applicant Dr. Philipp Hennig prevailed in a competitive process. With the start of two new PhD students in April this Emmy Noether Group takes up its research activities. Philipp Hennig

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