Paul Bürkner is the first junior research group leader in SimTech to start working. In a highly competitive selection process, he was able to prevail over his competitors and convinced the selection committee with his work.
Born in Marburg, Paul Bürkner started studying psychology in Münster in 2010. When this was not enough anymore after about a year, he also began studying mathematics at FernUni Hagen. He completed both as a Master of Science and began his doctorate in statistical psychology, which he successfully completed in 2017 under Professor Holling. After a short PosDoc station in Münster, he spent the last year and a half in Finland. As a PostDoc at the Aalto University in Helsinki, he worked under Prof. Vehtari in the field of computer science on prohabilistic machine learning.
Paul Bürkner's research focuses on Bayes Theory and its mathematical methods as well as on the development of scientific software in this field. His research activities have already received international awards. By further developing these methods, Mr. Bürkner will contribute significantly to the research of the Stuttgart Cluster of Excellence SimTech.
Christian Rohde, chairman of the research commission that was responsible for the selection of the junior research group leaders, sees in Paul Bürkner very good connections to the research work of other scientists in SimTech and knows that "everyone is very enthusiastic. Paul Bürkner was a strong candidate with a very good fit for SimTech. In the field of statistics, he will bring in aspects which are very interesting for SimTech and which we currently don't have. Especially to Benedikt Ehinger and Andreas Bulling we see many connections and the addition that Mr. Bürkner would be to both.”
To enable an additional career step, SimTech has established independent junior research groups to attract internationally outstanding postdoctoral students. Junior research group leaders are able to supervise and check dissertation projects independently. They are guaranteed full access to core facilities and central infrastructures.
Further information about Paul Bürkner can be found at: https://paul-buerkner.github.io/about/