Bastian Grossenbacher Rieck

Welcome to my personal and academic space! I am a Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Fribourg, leading the AIDOS Lab, which focuses on research at the intersection of geometry, topology, and machine learning. I also hold a secondary appointment at the Institute of AI for Health and the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus of Helmholtz Munich. Finally, I have the honour to be a TUM Junior Fellow and a member of ELLIS.

You can give me anonymous feedback. I am particularly interested in feedback related to my research or my content. Alternatively, you can shoot me an e-mail.

I am looking for Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers, so if you like my research and would like to work with me, please reach out to me with your CV and a brief motivation letter!

This site contains some things I care about.

Affiliations

• I am a co-director of the Applied Algebraic Topology Research Network (AATRN). Topology may not save the world, but it may well save something that is at least homotopy-equivalent to the world. Check out our great seminar recordings, available for free at the AATRN YouTube Channel, which has over 475 videos, over 4,500 YouTube subscribers, and averages more than 24 hours watched per day.

• I am a member of the Topology, Algebra, and Geometry in Data Science (TAG DS) initiative. Our aim is to make more people in machine learning and data science aware of the wondrous possibilities of these subjects.

• I maintain DONUT - The Database of Original & Non-Theoretical Uses of Topology, which is based on a well-curated list of publications, created by Barbara Giunti.

Background

Previously, I was a senior assistant in the Machine Learning & Computational Biology Lab of Prof. Dr. Karsten Borgwardt at ETH Zürich. I obtained my Ph.D.  in computer science from Heidelberg University, which is also where I got my master’s degree in mathematics.

Miscellaneous

• If you are a student interested in working with me, please check out my notes for potential collaborations.
• I have a lot of great colleagues and friends who helped me get to where I am today; I keep track of this in a dedicated site about the acknowledgements for my career.
• I might also sometimes appear under the name of Bastian Grossenbacher or Bastian Grossenbacher-Rieck (with or without a hyphen). Technically, my full legal name is ‘Bastian Grossenbacher, né Rieck,’ but the vagaries of international law—my spouse and I do not presently share the same citizenship—make choosing a consistent naming scheme a considerable challenge. To prevent any further confusion, I still publish under my birth name, i.e. as Bastian Rieck.
• I am trying this Mastodon thing and you can also find me on Bluesky.