Speakers

Speakers

The speaker list is updated regularly across all categories – check back for the latest additions

Plenary Life Science Material Science Planet & Climate Society & Community Science for AI Policy for AI in Science

Plenary

University of Montréal & LawZero

Yoshua Bengio is Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at Université de Montreal, Co-President and Scientific Director of LawZero.

CTO and Co-founder of CuspAI and Professor at University of Amsterdam

Prof. Dr. Max Welling is a research chair in Machine Learning at the University of Amsterdam and a Merkin distinguished visiting professor at Caltech.

Henna Virkkunen

Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, European Commission

Henna Virkkunen serves as the Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy at the European Commission, a role she assumed in December 2024.

Ekaterina Zaharieva

Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation at the European Commission

Ekaterina Zaharieva is Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation at the European Commision.

Christina Egelund

Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science

The minister will highlight the priority of AI in the strategy the Council of the European Union and Denmark.

David Dreyer Lassen

Rector, University of Copenhagen

At AIS25, Rector will highlight UCPH’s vision for AI in Science as part of the university’s overall vision for research and innovation in Europe.

CEO and co-founder of Silo AI

Peter Sarlin is the CEO and co-founder of Silo AI, Europe’s largest private AI lab, and a Professor of Practice at Aalto University

Lene Oddershede

Senior Vice President, Natural & Technical Sciences, Novo Nordisk Foundation

Lene Oddershede leads the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s initiatives in natural and technical sciences. A physicist by training, she previously held a professorship at the Niels Bohr Institute.

Fabian J. Theis

Head of Helmholtz Munich Computational Health Center

Prof. Dr. Dr. Fabian Theis is the head of the Helmholtz Munich Computational Health Center and Director of the Institute for Computational Biology.

Teresa Czerwińska

Vice-President, European Investment Bank

Teresa Czerwińska was appointed the Vice President of the European Investment Bank in March 2020.

Maria Cristina Russo

Director, Prosperity, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission

Maria Cristina Russo is Director of the Prosperity Directorate in DG Research and Innovation.

Mikkel Leihardt

Director General, Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science (UFS)

Mikkel Leihardt heads the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science, overseeing national strategies for research, innovation, and education policy.

Board Member, European Innovation Council (EIC); Lecturer, MIT

Lars Frølund serves on the EIC Board and lectures at MIT, focusing on deep tech, innovation ecosystems, and strategic technology policy.

Chair of the AIS25 Steering Committee, Board President of ELLIS, Director of the Danish Pioneer Centre for AI, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen

Serge Belongie's research interests include Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, and Human-in-the-Loop Computing

Head of Unit at the Commission’s Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA)

With her background in law, Silke Obst bridges legal and technical fields.

Annelies Van de Ven

Policy officer at the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission

Annelies works to promote Open Science practices across the research community and in valorising the AI portfolio of the MSCA.

Sven Jager, Global Head of R&D Data and Computational Science, Sanofi

Since 2025, Sven has led the R&D Data and Computational Science Team at Sanofi, expanding his scope for AI Research on Target Discovery, translational topics, and Development at Sanofi.

Life Science

CSO of Prenaital and Professor at DTU Compute

Aasa's research sits at the intersection of machine learning, mathematics, and medical imaging with a particular focus on bringing responsible AI tools to practical use.

Portfolio Lead Life Sciences, Google DeepMind Accelerator

Agata specialises in building partnerships and products that turn technological breakthroughs into progress for people and the planet.

Aleksandra Zaniewska

Aleksandra Zaniewska combines technical depth with strategic vision to advance responsible and scalable AI innovation.

Curator Life Science

Anna Kreshuk is a group leader and acting deputy head of the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany.

Ph.D. MBA & CEO and Chairman of Novigenix SA

Brian Hashemi's work is currently focused on delivering AI-enabled immune intelligence in order to advance drug development and patient care.

Interim Executive Director of EMBL

Ewan is a non-executive Director of Genomics England, and a consultant and advisor to a number of companies, including Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Cantata Bio.

Senior Research Group Leader, Human Technopole, Italy

Florian Jug's research focuses on generative models, multimodal data integration, and uncertainty quantification to bridge molecular, cellular, and tissue scales.

Hugues Roest Crollius

Institut de Biologie de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure (IBENS), Paris, France

Hugues Roest Crollius' research focuses on understanding how genomes evolve and how their structure underpins biological innovation.

Jean-Philippe Vert

CEO and Co-Founder, Bioptimus, France

Jean-Phillipe Vert is a leading expert in AI for life sciences.

Jonathan Wareham

ESADE, Ramon Llull University; Lisbon Council

Jonathan Wareham's research focuses on the deep technology, scientific computing, scientific policy, and how these are influencing industries such as life science and energy.

Team Director (Principal Investigator) / Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences, RIKEN, Japan

Jun Seita's research interests cover the areas where AI meets biology, medicine, and beyond.

Kresten Lindorff-Larsen

Professor at University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Kresten Lindorff's research focuses on combining biophysics and machine learning to study the structure and dynamics of proteins with uses in basic science, biotechnology and personalized medicine.‍

CEO & Co-Founder, iLoF, Portugal

Luis Valente is on a mission to accelerate adequate treatments for millions of patients living with complex, heterogeneous diseases around the globe with the use of AI technology.

Michael Bronstein

DeepMind Professor of AI, University of Oxford

Michael Bronstein is a Member of the Academia Europaea, Fellow of IEEE, IAPR, BCS, and ELLIS, ACM Distinguished Speaker, and World Economic Forum Young Scientist.

Curator Life Science

Professor Oliver Stegle is a computational biologist who is developing machine learning methods for deciphering molecular variation across individuals, space and time.

Sameer Velankaar

Section Head, EMBL-EBI

Sameer Velankar works to develop advanced data analysis, as well as data query and visualisation tools to support fundamental and translational research and education.

Director, ELIXIR Finland

Tommi Kasvokuva is an adjunct professor in computational drug discovery at the University of Helsinki.

Materials science

Professor at University of Liverpool

Professor at University of Liverpool. Academic Director of the Materials Innovation Factory and Director of Leverhulme Research Centre for Functional Materials Design

NNF postdoctoral fellow at the Technical University of Denmark

Dr Andy S. Anker is an NNF postdoctoral fellow at the Technical University of Denmark and a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford.

Professor of Molecular Modeling at the Engineering Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

Gabor Csanyi is Professor of Molecular Modeling at the Engineering Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

Michele Ceriotti

Professor at EPFL, Institute of Materials

Michele Ceriotti unites rigorous statistical mechanics with machine learning to map structure–property relations from first principles.

Professor of Machine Intelligence at Chalmers Institute of Technology, Sweden

Ross King is now one of the most experienced AI researchers in Europe with a main research interest in AI for science.

Curator for Material Science

Professor Tejs Vegge, Director of the Pioneer Center for Accelerating P2X Materials Discovery (CAPeX), DTU Energy, DTU, and member of the EC Technology Council for Advanced Materials

CTO and Co-founder of CuspAI and Professor at University of Amsterdam

Prof. Dr. Max Welling is a research chair in Machine Learning at the University of Amsterdam and a Merkin distinguished visiting professor at Caltech.

Planet & Climate

Alexander Rudolf Diehl

Senior Advisor to Cyber Valley

Alexis Boukouvalas

Research Engineering Team Lead at DeepMind

Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen. director of the SCIENCE AI Centre

Christian Igel is a professor at DIKU, the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen.

Florence Rabier

Director-General of ECMWF

Dr. Florence Rabier is an internationally recognised expert in Numerical Weather Prediction

Giuseppe Borghi

Giuseppe Borghi leads the Φ-lab Division to ‘accelerates the future of Earth observation’,

Giuseppe Borghi leads the Φ-lab Division to ‘accelerates the future of Earth observation’,

Professor of Statistics at ETH Zurich

Jonas Peters' work relates to areas such as causal inference, distribution generalization, Earth system science, dynamical systems, and policy learning.

Dr. Kimmo Koski started as a CEO at CSC in August 2004 with a mission to support Finnish research providing world-class e-infrastructure and related services.

Senior Research Scientist in Weather Research Unit of the Danish Meteorological Institute

Leif Denby's research focusses on the dynamics and effects of convective clouds on climate.

Markus Reichstein

Curator for Planet & Climate Science

Director, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry; Director, ELLIS Unit Jena; Director, ELLIS Program Machine Learning for Earth and Climate Sciences; Professor for Global Ecology, University of Jena

Mohamed Hedi Karray

EIC Programme Manager for Artificial Intelligence

Salvatore Pinto

Digital Innovation Engineer at ESA/ESRIN

Sašo Džeroski

Curator for Planet & Climate Science

Sašo Džeroski is the Head of Department of Knowledge technologies and professor at the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana.

Society & Community

Alberto Di Meglio

Head of Innovation, CERN

Alberto Di Meglio leads CERN openlab and quantum tech initiatives. He is an expert in AI for high-energy physics and public-private R&D collaborations.

Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen

Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen

Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen specializes in education policy and predictive analytics using large-scale data. He work lies at the intersection of economics and social data science.

Arturo Valdivia

Postdoc, IT University of Copenhagen

Arturo Valdivia works in datascience and natural language processing. He is a member of the brAIn lab, focusing on AI and computational creativity.‍

Frederik Hertel

Associate Professor, Aalborg University (ETUC/AAU)

Frederik Hertel researches in creativity, leadership, and ethical innovation in organizations. He is active in European labor and tech policy discussions.

Postdoc, University of Copenhagen

Lisa Reutter specializes in datafication of public administration and algorithmic governance. Her research focuses on public-private data flows and welfare tech.

Morten Axel Pedersen

Moderator & Professor at University of Copenhagen

Morten Axel Pedersen is an anthropologist and social data scientist. His research focuses on tech sovereignty, AI governance, and computational ethnography.

Rebecca Adler-Nissen

Curator for Society & Communities

Rebecca Adler-Nissen is the director of the Danish National Centre for AI in Society (CAISA), University of Copenhagen.

Filmmaker and Researcher, UCLouvain

Serge Goriely explores intersections of cinema, philosophy, and society. He is known for his films and essays on AI, spirituality, and cultural narratives.

Professor of Digital Communication, University of Copenhagen

Professor Stine Lomborg leads research on digital tracking, datafication, and AI in society. She is also a founder of the Center for Tracking & Society.

Professor of Complexity and Network Science at DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark, Professor of Data Science at the Center for Social Data Science, University of Copenhagen.

Sune Lehmann studies human behavior through network science and large-scale data. His research includes mobility, contagion, and social complexity.

Head of Unit, Architecture and Technology, Danish Agency for Digital Government

Tobias Panduro leads digital growth and AI strategy in the Danish public sector, including European ecosystems. He has a background in political science and public administration.

Science for AI

Antoine Bosselut

Assistant professor at the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (EPFL)

Antoine Bosselut has a research focus on developing AI reasoning methods that can be effectively translated to important societal problems in health, education, and helping underserved communities.

Curator of Science for AI

Arnout Devos is the Scientific Coordinator of ELLIS and a Staff Member & Lecturer at the ETH AI Center, where they also co-head the ELIAS Alliance Node Zurich

Head of the Unit "Excellence in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics", part of the AI Office at theEuropean Commission.

Cécile Huet has been selected as one of the "25 women in robotics you need to know about" and she works to support beneficial robotics and AI development within Europe.

Jessica Montgomery

Jessica Montgomery is Director of ai@cam at the University of Cambridge and head the ELIAS Alliance Node Cambridge

Jessica Montgomery leads several research and policy programmes tackling real-world challenges in developing and deploying AI for societal benefit.

Matthias Bethge

Curator for Science for AI

Matthias Bethge is director of the Tübingen AI Center, co-founder of ELLIS and Head of the ELIAS Alliance

Policy Officer at the European AI Office

Miguel Rubio works to promote policies that foster research and development of AI within the EU.

Founder and General Partner of Air Street Capital

Nathan Benaich has many years of experience investing in AI-first companies and leads the non-profit RAAIS Foundation.

Professor of Computer Sciences & Director of the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Trento

Nicu Sebe leads research in multimedia information retrieval and human-computer interaction in computer vision applications.

Sahar Abdelnabi

Principal Investigator at the ELLIS Institute Tübingen and research group leader at the MPI and Tübingen AI Center

Sahar Abdelnabi leads the COMPASS research group (COoperative Machine intelligence for People-Aligned Safe Systems).

Tim Rocktäschel

Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Centre for AI at University College London

Tim Rocktäschel's work focuses on Artificial General Intelligence, Open-Endedness, Foundational World Models, and Self-Improvement.

Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, CIFAR AI Chair, an ELLIS advisor

Zhijing Jin's research focuses on Causal Reasoning with LLMs, and AI Safety in Multi-Agent LLMs.

Director of the "EU AI Office" within Directorate-General CONNECT at the European Commission

Lucilla Sioli is responsible for the coordination of the European AI strategy and its governance.

Chair of the AIS25 Steering Committee, Board President of ELLIS, Director of the Danish Pioneer Centre for AI, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen

Serge Belongie's research interests include Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, and Human-in-the-Loop Computing

Policy for AI in Science

Adeline Nazarenko

Director of CNRS Informatis

Adeline Nazarenko is the director of CNRS Informatics since early 2023.

Senior Policy Analyst”, at the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation

Alistair Nolan is a Senior Policy Analyst in the OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation.‍

Director, Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA-CSIC) EurAI Fellow.

Carles Sierra is a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence, specialising in multi-agent systems, agreement technologies, and social AI.

Erasmo Purificato

Scientific Project Officer

Erasmo Purificato is a Scientific Project Officer at the European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT) of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC).

Fabrizio Falchi

Research Director at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR)

Fabrizio Falchi is a Research Director at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), working at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies (ISTI) in Pisa.

Secretary General of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities

Jan Palmowski has been Secretary-General of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities since its creation in 2016.

Kurt Deketelaere

Sec-Gen LERU, Full Prof KU Leuven, Visiting Prof University of Helsinki, Chair Sustainability College Bruges, Director and Advisor

Professor Kurt Deketelaere is a highly respected legal scholar and policy expert in European research, innovation, education, energy, environment, climate, and sustainability policy.

Head of Unit, AI in Science and Critical Technologies, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission

Liviu Știrbăț is the Head of AI in Science at the DG for Research and Innovation in the European Commission.

Markus Reichstein

Curator for Planet & Climate Science

Director, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry; Director, ELLIS Unit Jena; Director, ELLIS Program Machine Learning for Earth and Climate Sciences; Professor for Global Ecology, University of Jena

Plamena Markova

Chief of International Relations, EMBL

Plamena Markova serves as the Chief of International Relations at EMBL and is a member of the EMBL Directorate.

Scholar and innovator for MCAA AI Group, Stanford University METRICS and Health CASCADE Ltd

Quentin recently achieved his MSCA PhD fellowship. Coming from cognitive science, he was exploring how digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) can enable co-creation.

Lead of the working group on AI in R&I, Danish Council for Research and Innovation Policy (DFIR)

Since 2019, Steffen Bohni has been Director General of the Danish National Research Centre for the Working Environment.

Maria Cristina Russo

Director, Prosperity, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission

Maria Cristina Russo is Director of the Prosperity Directorate in DG Research and Innovation.

Chair of the AIS25 Steering Committee, Board President of ELLIS, Director of the Danish Pioneer Centre for AI, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen

Serge Belongie's research interests include Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, and Human-in-the-Loop Computing

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