2002–2006North Rhine-Westphalia
Freelance graphic & web design
Layout grids, typography, and the first taste of building things people actually use. A useful bias ever since.
Researcher in AI & optimization · Bonn, DE
Alexander Hagg
I build co-creative systems — search algorithms and interfaces that help people explore enormous solution spaces and find options they didn't know they wanted.
- PhD
- Leiden University
Preference hypervolume, 2021 - Currently
- OpenSKIZZE-Praxis
CytoTransport - Teaching
- Evolutionary computation
since 2011
human in the loop
01 Position
Most AI tries to hand you the answer. I'm more interested in the space of possible answers — and in tools that let people wander it, argue with it, and make it their own.
The through-line
That question has followed me from robot perception and aerodynamic shape optimization to Quality-Diversity search, VR molecular analysis, and climate-adaptive urban planning.
The methods keep changing. The loop stays the same: model, explore, let a human decide.
Right now
Researching human–AI interaction for molecular science in the DFG project CytoTransport, co-leading the new Digital Twin 4 Multiphysics laboratory, and teaching evolutionary computation across computer science and engineering.
Recently led OpenSKIZZE as PI — a DBU-funded, interactive urban climate project with the German Weather Service's cold-air model inside the loop. Now building OpenSKIZZE-Praxis (2026–2027): a working QGIS plugin that carries the method into everyday planning practice.
Happiest when a domain expert says: “I hadn't considered that option.”
Bonn · 50.7374° N, 7.0982° E
02 Work
Eleven projects,
one question.
OpenSKIZZE's climate-adaptive planning, now heading into QGIS; CytoTransport's molecular interfaces; aerodynamic shape search in AErOmAt — every point is a project or a research thread. The axes are deliberately soft: how much a thing lives in algorithms or the physical world, and whether the machine decides alone or with a person.
↑ more co-creative
↓ more autonomous
algorithms → physical world
Hover, tap or focus a pointAxes are a vibe, not a metric
40+student theses
supervised
supervised
30+publications
& chapters
& chapters
15years of
teaching
teaching
10research projects
& labs
& labs
03 Playground
Four things
to play with.
Working prototypes, not case studies. Search a hidden preference landscape, cool a city block, dock a molecule, or make a mirror duet with the machine. Everything runs locally — open a card and start poking.
Four playable prototypes Runs in your browser · no install · keyboard & touch
04 Path
A non-linear route
through machines and people.
Design, robotics, optimization, co-creation. Each step kept the previous one's question and changed the medium.
2011Fraunhofer IAIS · NIFTi
Human–robot teams for search and rescue
Joined an EU robotics project studying how people and robots share work and attention when the stakes are high.
2012–2016H-BRS · b-it-bots
BSc, MSc and a RoboCup team
Perception for domestic robots with ROS, C++ and Python. The transparent-object work won a best paper at RoboCup 2016.
2016–2019H-BRS · AErOmAt
Fewer simulations, better shapes
Began teaching evolutionary computation and joined AErOmAt, where surrogate-assisted optimization cut the cost of aerodynamic design.
2017–2021LIACS, Leiden University
PhD: Discovering the Preference Hypervolume
Built an interactive model for co-creative Quality-Diversity search with Gaussian processes and VAEs. Defended in 2021; honourable mention for the ACM SIGEVO dissertation award.
2019–2023H-BRS · FullDA-FM / KISs-BiS
From algorithms to planning practice
Led FullDA-FM as PI, turning optimization into urban decision support, and co-authored a systematic review of AI in elite sport.
2023–2025H-BRS · UMMBAS
VR molecules, shared analysis
Collaborative molecular analysis in immersive space, including the MolFuSE virtual-screening framework and co-supervised work on force fields and generative GNNs.
2024–2025H-BRS · OpenSKIZZE · PI
Urban climate as a design space
Led the DBU-funded OpenSKIZZE project: integrated DWD's KLAM_21 cold-air model and built an interactive, surrogate-assisted tool for climate-adaptive neighbourhood planning.
2025–nowH-BRS · CytoTransport / TREE
Human–AI for molecular science
Studying interaction for conformations, force fields and mutation effects, while co-leading the Digital Twin 4 Multiphysics laboratory.
2026–2027H-BRS · OpenSKIZZE-Praxis
From research prototype to a QGIS plugin
Taking OpenSKIZZE into planning practice: a working QGIS plugin that brings interactive, climate-adaptive design into the software planners already use.
05 Craft
The work behind
the work.
A broad toolbox, used with a preference for methods that stay honest about uncertainty and interfaces that stay legible to the person using them.
01 / Models
Learning from stubborn data
Applied ML for scientific and spatial problems, where samples are few, simulations are expensive, and “just add data” is not an option.
- U-Net
- GNNs
- Diffusion models
- Gaussian processes
- Random forests
- Ensembles
- PyTorch
- scikit-learn
02 / Search
Many good answers, not one
Quality-Diversity and surrogate-assisted optimization for problems with expensive simulators, many trade-offs, and a human choosing the final move.
- Quality-Diversity
- Surrogate-assisted optimization
- Multi-objective
- Evolutionary computation
- pyribs
03 / Interfaces
Keeping the human in the loop
Co-creative interfaces, immersive analysis and agentic tooling — built so that domain experts steer the search instead of watching it happen.
- Human–AI interaction
- VR / AR
- Visual analytics
- QGIS plugin
- LLM agents
- Cline / Roo Code
- Pi / Oh My Pi
- OpenRig
04 / Practice
Shipping it, funding it, teaching it
Research that runs: Python and C++ systems, robotics middleware, project leadership, grant writing, and a lot of supervised student work.
- Python
- C / C++
- Linux
- ROS
- OpenCV
- PI & grant writing
- Teaching
06 Life
Off the clock,
still making things.
Co-creation is not only a research topic. It is also how I like to spend a Sunday: with musicians, gardeners, cooks, and sentences that take too long to finish.
I grew up Dutch, live in Bonn, and move between German, English and Dutch without noticing. Most of my best thinking happens away from a screen — on a hiking trail, at a piano, or while something is simmering.
“The interesting moment is when a tool stops feeling like a tool and starts feeling like a collaborator.”
I am also part of Neue Stadtgärtnerei Bonn, a grassroots project for socially and ecologically sustainable housing, urban agriculture and education in the middle of the city.
- Dutchnative
- Germanfluent
- Englishfluent
Music
Neoclassical piano and improvisation. The best ideas tend to arrive while playing badly.
Writing
A novel in progress, aiming for publication in 2027. Fiction is optimization without a loss function.
Cooking
Indonesian kitchen. Recipes are reproducible; the good ones rarely are.
Growing
Neue Stadtgärtnerei Bonn: sustainable housing, urban agriculture and education in the city.
Outside
Hiking and cycling. Thinking at a walking pace, preferably with a hill in front of me.
Questions
Philosophy of intelligence, geopolitics, European politics. Still trying to define the first one.