Past events

August 25 – 27, 2025

The workshop again brought together the leading groups that develop large-scale neural networks for weather and climate.

Following the three-day workshop, we offered hackathon challenges between August 27 and 29 on a variety of topics, which were very well received. This included lectures, which where open to all interested scientists at the University of Bonn.  

Read report about the event

April 2, 2025

Open to TRA members and beyond! We had a great opportunity to discuss new topics and ideas at an early stage in five dedicated parallel sessions:

Modelling in Economics and Computation
Modelling and analysis in Earth System Science 
Modelling in Chemistry 
Modelling Behavior 
Modelling Life

We thank all participants for the high interest and the lively discussions at the TRA networking event 2025!

Read report about the event

April 25, 2025

Inaugural symposium for Hertz Chair László Végh who focuses on fundamental questions at the intersection of algorithms, optimization, and game theory. The symposium gave an overview of recent developments in areas such as network design, convex optimization, combinatorial markets and fair division. A selection of talks by invited international and local speakes was followed by ths inaugural lecture of László Végh.

Read report about the event

March 25, 2025

This milestone marked a year of remarkable research and scientific achievements powered by Marvin’s capabilities. 90+ participants joined an interactive event including the following highlights:

• Anniversary Celebration
• Finalist presentations from the Marvin HPC Results Competition (live voting)
• Invited Talk by Tim Mattson (OpenMP)
• Networking & Collaboration
• Catered lunch & birthday cake 🎂

Read press report about the event

August 29 – 30, 2024

The workshop brought together the leading groups that develop large-scale neural networks for weather and climate. Topics included:

• machine learning-based numerical weather prediction
• climate emulators
• AI-based Earth system component models
• machine learning from observations
• foundation models for the Earth system
• evaluation and explainability of large-scale machine learning models for weather and climate

Read short report about the event

July 7, 2024

The University of Bonn's Science Festival took place for the second time in a row with a focus on the six TRAs, which presented related research. For the topic “Mathematical Models, AI, and Virtual Applications,” TRA Modelling gathered entusastic presenters and helpers of the Excellence Cluster Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM), Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, and Radiology Dept. of the UKB.

We thank all people that participated to the program!  

Read report about the "Wissenschaftsfestival" (in German)

March 19-20, 2024

At the two-day workshop, early career scientists gained insights into machine learning and its theoretical concepts in various ways. Following a basic lecture in three parts by Prof. Dr. Bauckhage, all participants had the opportunity to try out what they had learned in practical application exercises. On the second day, lectures provided insights on the application of “Physics-informed Neural Networks” (PINN) to model gene regulation in stem cells (Dr. Maria Mircea), the use of generative AI models for physical questions (Dr. Kim Nicoli) and the Use of “Active Learning” for behavior analysis in neuroscience (Dr. Jens Tillmann). The event ended with a small networking session in which the participants were able to exchange information about their research and what they had learned during these two days of workshop.

We would like to thank the excellent speakers and dedicated tutors for their contribution to the success of this workshop!

October 20, 2023

On the occasion of the inauguration of "Marvin" at Research and Technology Center for Detector Physics (FTD), TRA Modelling invited a broad spectrum of scientists to an interdisciplinary symposium to mark the inauguration of Marvin.

Read report about the event

September 08, 2023 

 3rd workshop of DFG funded research unit FOR 2535 - Anticipating Human Behavior at Hörsaalzentrum Campus Poppelsdorf. Presentations dealt with recent approaches that anticipate human behavior from video or other sensor data. The goal was to bring together researchers from multiple fields and perspectives, and to discuss major research problems and opportunities and how we should coordinate efforts to advance the field.

Find all details about the event

September 4-5, 2023

This workshop came to live to adress the tremendous progress on large scale machine learning for numerical weather prediction, take stock of developments and discuss possible next steps and open research frontiers. The workshop brought together researchers from industry, modeling centers and academia and provided a forum for detailed discussions on the subject. Scientific organizers were Martin Schultz (Jülich Supercomputing Center), Matthew Chantry (ECWMF), Christian Lessig (ECMWF) and Jürgen Gall (University of Bonn). The event was jointly supported by ECMWF, TRA Modelling and the ERC Advanced Grant IntelliAQ.

June 15, 2023

We invited young researchers for a network opportunity at a special location.

More than 20 participants came together in the exhibition rooms of the "Deutsches Museum Bonn" for two rounds of flash talks plus networking time and fun.

Mission Networking was jointly organized with TRA Matter, TRA Life and Health and BFB. 

April 26, 2023

This transdisciplinary event was organized with TRA Individuals and Societies, HCM, ECONtribute, and TRR EPoS. The aim was to bring together practitioners and developers of methods to discuss the latest advancements and their application in the social sciences.

Talks covered a variety of topics, including quadrature and optimization. Keynote speaker, Ken Judd, with degrees in Computer Science, Math, and Economics, embodied the transdisciplinary spirit that we hoped to foster. 

Program:

• Uta Seidler "High-dimensional quadrature methods and their application in economic models"
• Ole Wilms "Small Data': Efficient Inference with Occasionally Observed States"
• Janos Gabler "Tranquilo: A trust-region optimizer for economists by economists"
• Ken Judd (Keynote) "Dynamic Stochastic Integration of Climate and Economy: An Example of How Third Millennium Computational Science Could Help Social Decisionmaking"

Organizers: Michael Griebel and Hans-Martin von Gaudecker

April 17-20, 2023

International conference with a broad program including eight keynote speeches and conference tracks on:  

• Systems Biology
• Integrative Pathway Modelling
• Mathematical Image Analysis
• Computational Immunology
• Chemoinformatics and Computational Drug Design
• Single Cell Analysis
• Mathematical Biology
• Dynamics of Cellular and Neuronal Networks
• Computational Protein Modelling and Design

Four-day symposium was jointly organized by TRAs "Modelling" and "Life and Health" as well as Clusters of Excellence HCM and ImmunoSensation².

Read report about the conference

January 17-18, 2023 

The workshop brought together researchers across faculties and TRAs who produce and deal with large and complex data sets and generate digital research products. We had an vivid exchange of ideas on common challenges.

The workshop was open to all researchers and staff of Bonn University and affiliated institutions. 

Find program and additional information here 

July 8, 2022

Networking Event jointly organized with the Center for Earth System Observation and Computational Analysis (CESOC). 

Highlights were a seminar talk is given by Prof. Jan-Henrik Haunert on: "Combinatorial Optimization in Cartography and Geographical Information Science" and a nice get-together and networking in front of Institute for Numerical Simulation (INS).

Everyone interested in CESOC and/or TRA Modelling was cordially invited to join!

June 9, 2022

The Institute of Microbiology and Biotechnology (IfMB) turned 50 in 2022. An ideal occasion to celebrate the broad spectrum of microbiological research, explaining how "microbial influencers" shape our world and what implications they have for global problems such as climate change, antibiotic resistance or global health and nutrition.

Preseanations by speakers from biology and physics were tailored to an interdisciplinary audience, starting at a lay scientific level and end with the latest results for experts.

Read report about the sypmosium  

Lecture series in 2022 (May 23, June 27 and July 20)

Open Source Economics (OSE) is a platform for reproducible research with modern tools. OSE meets Industry was a series of talks in which companies involved in modeling provide insight into their strategies for addressing real-world problems. The talks discussed solved and unsolved problems. Through active interaction between presenters and audience we hoped to bring industry and academia one step closer.

The last talks were:

• OSE meets Comma Soft AG
• OSE meets Deutsche Bank AG
• OSE meets AXA Konzern AG

It was a great pleasure to host the one-day ‘Symposium on Interdisciplinary Research in Mathematics and Life Sciences’, which was held in the Hörsaalzentrum of the University of Bonn and online on Monday, August 30, 2021.

The symposium was jointly organized by the Clusters of Excellence Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM) and ImmunoSensation² as well as the Transdisciplinary Research Areas TRA Mathematics, Modelling and Simulation of Complex Systems and TRA Life and Health. The event aimed to provide an overview of the respective and partially very new research activities in this field. 

Please read the report for further information.