Felix Weitkämper (2015)
Professor for statistical and symbolic artificial intelligence
Having undertaken undergraduate study in mathematics with philosophy at the LMU University of Munich, I embarked on doctoral study at Merton, graduating with a DPhil in mathematical logic under the supervision of Prof. Boris Zilber in 2018. I undertook teacher training in a vocational setting in Northern England following the Brilliant Club's Researchers in Schools scheme, and then followed my Mertonian wife back to Munich, where she read for a doctorate in Biology. I myself returned to academia in early 2020, weeks before the global pandemic, taking on a fixed-term 5-year lecturership in programming languages and artificial intelligence at the LMU. In this time, I habilitated in statistical relational artificial intelligence, which lies at the intersection of logical and probabilistic approaches to artificial intelligence. In April 2025, I was appointed founding professor for statistical and symbolic artificial intelligence at the German University for Digital Science, a brand-new not-for-profit distance learning institution based in Potsdam, Germany. Since then, my focus has shifted towards preserving deep human thought in an age of artificial intelligence, encompassing technical work on leveraging human knowledge as well as an increasing interest in governance, law and policy.
