HeiCAD team

Martin Mauve has headed the Chair of Computer Networks and Communication Systems since 2003. From 2015-​2019 he was Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. He is director of the Heine Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (HeiCAD) and together with Prof. Dr. Klaus Pfeffer speaker of the Manchot research group "Decision-​making with the help of Artificial Intelligence". His research interests include secure and robust distributed systems, computer-​aided group work and the realization of participation using Internet technology. A special focus is on highly scalable support of discussion and decision making.

Regina Schober has held the Chair of American Literature and Cultural Studies at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf since 2020. As co-PI of the “AI for All” project, she has contributed perspectives of the humanities to the interdisciplinary discussion on AI and has been deputy director of HeiCAD since 2025. Her research interests include literary and cultural network theories, algorithmic concepts of the self and literary negotiations of digitality and artificial intelligence, with special reference to the US-American discourse.

Saskia Reither is scientific manager of HeiCAD and the Manchot Research Group "Decision-​making with Artificial Intelligence".

She has been working as a science manager for 15 years. Her professional focus lies in the development and implementation of strategic processes in university management, in project management, especially of cross-​faculty cross-​sectional tasks, and in the coordination of research contexts. She studied German, French and musicology in Cologne, Bochum and Stanford and received her doctorate in digital literature and hypertexts in Frankfurt am Main.

Julijana Popovic is an administrative assistant at HeiCAD. She studied English, German and computer science and has worked as a project assistant in the software and online business industry. At HeiCAD she is responsible for resource management, organisation, personnel management, event organisation, and administration.

Katarina Boland is a research associate for HeiCAD as well as a staff member at the chairs of Computational Networks and Data & Knowledge Engineering at the Institute of Computer Science at HHU. She studied computational linguistics with minors in psychology and computer science in Heidelberg, and after several years at GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, she received her PhD in computer science at HHU. Her research focuses on natural language processing and the development of AI-based methods for social science use cases.

Jacqueline Klusik-Eckert is a research associate at HeiCAD. She studied art history and modern German literature in Erlangen and Bern. After her master's degree, she worked at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and later as coordinator of Digital Humanities at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. In her PhD, she researched the culture of copying around 1600 and the reception of Rudolfine artists. In addition to her research fields in cultural studies, she is interested in methods and further development of knowledge transfer and science communication.

Maike Mayer is a research associate for HeiCAD. She studied psychology at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, where she completed her doctorate on moral dilemmas in the context of autonomous driving. She has also researched and taught on various topics in the field of human-machine interaction, such as trust in automated systems.

Ann-Kathrin Selker is a research associate for HeiCAD and an academic teacher at the Group Computer Networks at HHU. She studied computer science at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and subsequently completed her PhD on computational complexity in collective decision making, also at HHU.

Katja Theune is a research associate at HeiCAD. She studied economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, where she earned her doctorate at the Chair of Statistics in the Faculty of Economics. Most recently, she conducted research as head of the BMBF-funded junior research group "Determinants and Models for Predicting Dropouts" in the area of applying machine learning methods to educational science issues.

Selina Müller is a research associate at HeiCAD as part of the KI:edu.nrw project. She studied media informatics and computer science with a focus on digital image processing in Furtwangen and Jena and worked as a research engineer in the field of computer vision after completing her master's degree.

Elias Schwoerer is a student assistant in the "KI:edu.nrw" / AI-Literacy project.