E-mail: christoph.benzmueller(at)uni-bamberg.de
Address: An der Weberei 5, 96047 Bamberg
Room: WE5/05.093
Phone: +49 (0)951/863-2942
Further website:Private website (with complete list of publications)
Office hours: by appointment
Prof. Christoph Benzmüller has held the Chair of AI Systems Engineering at the University of Bamberg since 2022. He is also the elected Director of the Centre for Innovative Applications of Computer Science (ZIAI, since 2023), Study Programme Representative of the B.Sc. in AI & Data Science, and a core member of the Bamberg Center for Artificial Intelligence (BaCAI). As an adjunct (apl.) professor he is affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin (where he was the first Una Europa Visiting Professor in 2020), and he maintains a close research collaboration with the University of Luxembourg. He also advises AI start-ups in Germany and abroad.
Benzmüller’s research interests lie at the intersection of AI/computer science, philosophy, mathematics and language. His work shows that rational arguments can now be mechanised and analysed very well in computers using modern symbolic AI technology. Together with his team he has developed automated theorem provers for classical and non-classical higher-order logics and applies them in the areas mentioned; with the provers LEO-II (2010) and LEO-III (2019) his team became world champion in higher-order automated theorem proving (CASC). His studies of Gödel’s ontological argument for the existence of God on the computer attracted worldwide media attention. The range of applications of his work is broad and includes the mechanisation of ethical and legal reasoning in computers, e.g. for the intended control of autonomous AI systems. With LogiKEy (logikey.org) he has developed a framework and methodology for logic and knowledge engineering whose applications range from normative reasoning in AI, law and ethics to mathematics, philosophy and theology.
Benzmüller sees AI less as a technology than as a scientific discipline that should focus more on the exploration of, and experimentation with, representing objects.* For him, the exploration and flexible processing of representing objects in computers, combined with hybrid AI (the fusion of symbolic and sub-symbolic techniques), is a central challenge and opportunity for modelling (strongly) intelligent AI systems. Explicit, declarative representations are also particularly relevant for realising trustworthy, responsible AI systems, since they make (normative and other) knowledge not only transparent and explainable, but also efficiently and robustly communicable between humans and machines.
As a visiting professor and visiting scholar, Benzmüller has conducted research at numerous renowned universities in Germany and abroad and has built up a close international research network. His academic stations include BITS Pilani Dubai (UAE), Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Luxembourg, Stanford University (USA), the International University in Germany, the University of Cambridge (UK), the University of Birmingham (UK), the University of Edinburgh (UK) and Carnegie Mellon University (USA).
Benzmüller studied (1989–1995), received his doctorate (1999) and habilitated (2006) at Saarland University. In 2012 he additionally received the venia legendi in Mathematics at Freie Universität Berlin.
Awards and honours (selection): Best Paper Awards at DEON 2018 (John-Jules Meyer Best Paper Award), CLAR 2023 and ISDIA 2025; DFG Heisenberg Fellowship (2012–2017); Central Teaching Award of Freie Universität Berlin for the lecture course “Computational Metaphysics” (2015); nomination for the Dan David Prize (2014); High-end Foreign Expert for Machine Ethics, Zhejiang University, China (since 2023).
Benzmüller serves on the editorial boards of, among others, Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, Logic Journal of the IGPL, Journal of Applied Logics and Mathematics in Computer Science; he is a jury member for the Herbrand Award, the Dov Gabbay Prize and the Kurt Gödel Essay Award, and a member of, among others, the Federation of German Scientists (VDW), Sigma Xi (USA), the steering committee of the GI section on Artificial Intelligence, the steering committee of the DEON society and the executive board of the International Federation for Computational Logic (IfCoLoG). He has served as vice-president of the Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE), board member of the Association for Automated Reasoning and spokesman of the GI special interest group on Deduction Systems.
Benzmüller’s research has been funded by, among others, the DFG (Heisenberg Fellowship, research fellowship, research grants, Collaborative Research Centre), EPSRC/UK (research project), the Volkswagen Foundation (Experiment!), the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (doctoral scholarship), the ERC (Research Training Network), FNR/Luxembourg and the BMBF.
Prior to his academic career, Christoph Benzmüller was a successful long-distance runner at national level (including German team champion in cross-country running, 1990); he still competes today in the M55 age group at German Masters Championships.
(*The term “representing objects” goes back to the AI pioneer Wolfgang Bibel.)
