Short Biography: Christoph Benzmüller

Christoph Benzmüller is a professor at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany) and a visiting scholar of the University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg). Previous research stations of Christoph include Stanford University (USA), University of Cambridge (UK), Saarland University (Germany), University of Birmingham (UK) and the University of Edinburgh (UK).

Christoph received his PhD (1999) and his Habilitation (2007) in computer science from Saarland University. His PhD research was partly conducted at Carnegie Mellon University (USA). In 2012, Christoph was awarded with a Heisenberg Research Fellowship of the German National Research Foundation (DFG).

Christoph's research activities are interfacing the areas of artificial intelligence, philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and natural language. Many of these activities draw on classical higher-order logic (HOL), which has is roots in the work by Russel and Church. Christoph has contributed to the semantics and proof theory of HOL, and together with colleagues and students he has developed the Leo theorem provers for HOL. More recently he has been utilising HOL as a universal meta-logic to automate various non-classical logics in topical application areas, including machine ethics & machine law (responsible AI), rational argumentation, metaphysics, category theory, etc. Recent research also addresses the integration of automated reasoning and machine learning.

Christoph is trustee and vice-president of CADE (Conference on Automated Deduction), board member of AAR (Association of Automated Reasoning), steering committee member of DEON (International Conference on Deontic Logic and Normative Systems) and spokesman of the section Deduction Systems of the Gesellschaft für Informatik. He serves in various further functions (chair, editorial board, steering committee, trustee, etc.) for a range of conferences and organisations.

Prior to his academia career, Christoph Benzmüller was a successful long-distance runner at German national level.