Prof. Dr. Ricardo Usbeck

21335 Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, C 4.314
Fon +49.4131.677-2627, ricardo.usbeck@leuphana.de
Professor, Professorship of Information Systems, in particular Artificial Intelligence and Explainability

Table of contents for this page

Vita

Ricardo Usbeck studied computer science (B.Sc., M.Sc.) at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He then moved to Leipzig, where he received his doctorate in 2017 in the field of data extraction and search engines. Until 2019, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Paderborn in the Data Science Group. He later became team leader at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems. In 2021, he took over the Junior Professorship for Semantic Systems at the University of Hamburg. In 2023, he was appointed Professor of Information Systems, in particular Artificial Intelligence and Explainability, at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He works in and leads several national and international research projects on knowledge graphs, large language models, chatbots and AI for social good. He is interested in transformation-related domains such as sustainability and creative spaces for technology. Ricardo Usbeck tries to build a bridge between research and application.

Projects

  1. Proaktive Versorgungssicherheit durch dynamische Simulation mit selbstlernenden LLM-Agenten (PROVIDER) - Teilvorhaben: Neuro-Symbolische KI für Erklärbare Informationsextraktion und Event-Analyse"
    Ricardo Usbeck (Project manager, academic)
    →

    Project: Research

  2. Studienqualitätsmittel: Mobile KI-Workstations für den gleichberechtigten Zugang zur KI Entwicklung
    (Project manager, academic) , Ricardo Usbeck (Project manager, academic)
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    Project: Teaching

  3. Creative Space for Human and Artificial Intelligence
    Ricardo Usbeck (Project manager, academic) , (Project manager, academic)
    →

    Project: Teaching

  4. Studienqualitätsmittel: Student AI server
    Debayan Banerjee (Project manager, academic) , Kai Moltzen (Project manager, academic) , Ricardo Usbeck (Project manager, academic)
    →

    Project: Teaching

  5. Leuphana Startup Lab für Innovation, Transformation & Gründung
    Burkhardt Funk (Project manager, academic) , Ricardo Usbeck (Co-Projectmanager, academic) , Arthur Seibel (Co-Projectmanager, academic) , Dana-Kristin Mah (Co-Projectmanager, academic) , Carsten Wille (Coordination) , Andrea Japsen (Coordination)
    →

    Project: Research

View all projects

Publications

Books and anthologies

  1. Proceedings of TextGraphs-17: Graph-based Methods for Natural Language Processing: The 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association of Computational Linguistics; August 15, 2024; TextGraphs @ ACL 2024
    Dmitry Ustalov (Editor) , Yanjun Gao (Editor) , Alexander Pachenko (Editor) , Elena Tutubalina (Editor) , Irina Nikishina (Editor) , Arti Ramesh (Editor) , Andrey Sakhovskiy (Editor) , Ricardo Usbeck (Editor) , Gerald Penn (Editor) , Marco Valentino (Editor) , 2024 Kerrville , 162 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Conference proceedings › Research

  2. D2R2 2024: Linked Data-driven Resilience Research 2024: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Linked Data-driven Resilience Research (D2R2'24) co-located with European Semantic Web Conference 2024 (ESWC 2024), May 27, 2024
    Julia Holze (Editor) , Sebastian Tramp (Editor) , Michael Martin (Editor) , Sören Auer (Editor) , Ricardo Usbeck (Editor) , Nenad Krdzavac (Editor) , 2024 Aachen

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Conference proceedings › Research

  3. Second International Workshop on Linked Data-driven Resilience Research 2023
    Sebastian Tramp (Editor) , Ricardo Usbeck (Editor) , Natanael Arndt (Editor) , Julia Holze (Editor) , Sören Auer (Editor) , 2023

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Conference proceedings › Research

  4. Linked Data-driven Resilience Research 2023: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Linked Data-driven Resilience Research 2023 co-located with Extended Semantic Web Conference 2023 (ESWC 2023), Hersonissos, Greece, May 28, 2023
    Sebastian Tramp (Editor) , Ricardo Usbeck (Editor) , Natanael Arndt (Editor) , Julia Holze (Editor) , Sören Auer (Editor) , 2023 Aachen

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Conference proceedings › Research

  5. SemREC-SMART 2022: Joint Proceedings of SemREC 2022 and SMART 2022
    Gunjan Singh (Editor) , Raghava Mutharaju (Editor) , Pavan Kapanipathi (Editor) , Nandana Mihindukulasooriya (Editor) , Mohnish Dubey (Editor) , Ricardo Usbeck (Editor) , Debayan Banerjee (Editor) , 2023 Aachen , 77 p.

    Research output: Books and anthologies › Conference proceedings › Research

View all publications

Journal contributions

  1. STaRQ-Agent - Investigating Generalization in Knowledge Graph Question Answering via A Multi-Agent Collaborative Framework
    Longquan Jiang (Author) , Debayan Banerjee (Author) , Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , 06.04.2026 , in: IEEE Access, 14 , p. 59158-59170 , 13 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  2. Junior fellows and distinguished dissertation of the GI and AI for crisis
    Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , Angelie Kraft (Author) , Patrick Westphal (Author) , 01.02.2025 , in: IT - Information Technology, 67, 1 , p. 1-2 , 2 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Other (editorial matter etc.) › Research

  3. QALD-10 — The 10th Challenge on Question Answering over Linked Data: Shifting from DBpedia to Wikidata as a KG for KGQA
    Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , Xi Yan (Author) , Aleksandr Perevalov (Author) , Longquan Jiang (Author) , Julius Schulz (Author) , Angelie Kraft (Author) , Cedric Möller (Author) , Junbo Huang (Author) , Jan Reineke (Author) , Axel-Cyrille Ngonga Ngomo (Author) , Muhammad Saleem (Author) , Andreas Both (Author) , 01.12.2024 , in: Semantic Web, 15, 6 , p. 2193-2207 , 15 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  4. Creative spaces in computer science
    Martin Kohler (Author) , Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , Janick Edinger (Author) , 01.12.2024 , in: IT - Information Technology, 66, 2-3 , p. 39-41 , 3 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Other (editorial matter etc.) › Research

  5. NFDI4DS Gateway and Portal
    Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , Tilahun Taffa (Author) , Rudy Alexandro Garrido Veliz (Author) , Rana Muhammad Abdullah (Author) , Najeebullah Shams (Author) , Bianca Wentzel (Author) , Zongxiong Chen (Author) , Sonja Schimmler (Author) , 07.09.2023 , in: Proceedings of the Conference on Research Data Infrastructure, 1 , 4 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Conference abstract in journal › Research › peer-review

View all publications

Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

  1. ShortPathQA: A Dataset for Controllable Fusion of Large Language Models with Knowledge Graphs
    Mikhail Salnikov (Author) , Andrey Sakhovskiy (Author) , Irina Nikishina (Author) , Aida Usmanova (Author) , Angelie Kraft (Author) , Cedric Möller (Author) , Debayan Banerjee (Author) , Junbo Huang (Author) , Longquan Jiang (Author) , Rana Muhammad Abdullah (Author) , Xi Yan (Author) , Elena Tutubalina (Author) , Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , Alexander Panchenko (Author) , 01.01.2026 , p. 95-110 , 16 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Article in conference proceedings › Research › peer-review

  2. GANDR - Georelating Dataset, Metrics, and Evaluation
    Kai Moltzen (Author) , Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , 19.12.2025 New York, NY, USA , p. 61-71 , 11 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Article in conference proceedings › Research › peer-review

  3. LLM Agents for Georelating - A New Task for Locating Events
    Kai Moltzen (Author) , Junbo Huang (Author) , Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , 12.12.2025 New York, NY, USA , p. 277–280 , 4 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Article in conference proceedings › Research › peer-review

  4. DBLP QuAD 2.0: Scholarly Natural Questions from SPARQL
    Tilahun Taffa (Author) , Patrick Neises (Author) , Stefan Ollinger (Author) , Patrick Westphal (Author) , Marcel R. Ackermann (Author) , Debayan Banerjee (Author) , Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , 09.12.2025 , p. 236-240 , 5 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Article in conference proceedings › Research › peer-review

  5. ReportGRI: Automating GRI Alignment and Report Assessment
    Aida Usmanova (Author) , Rana Muhammad Abdullah (Author) , Debayan Banerjee (Author) , Markus Leippold (Author) , Ricardo Usbeck (Author) , 10.11.2025 New York , p. 6723-6727 , 5 p.

    Research output: Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Article in conference proceedings › Research › peer-review

View all publications

Activities

  1. KI- & Ethik-Diskussion für das Nachwuchsführungskräfteprogramm Futour Lüneburg
    Ricardo Usbeck (Speaker)

    Activity: talk or presentation in privat or public events › Transfer

  2. Vortrag bei der Landesdatenschutzkonferenz
    Ricardo Usbeck (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  3. Keynote bei der Vollversammlung der IHK LW
    Ricardo Usbeck (Speaker)

    Activity: Guest lectures › Transfer

  4. Tag der Informatik 2025
    Ricardo Usbeck (Speaker)

    Activity: talk or presentation in privat or public events › Transfer

  5. Erster Infotag für das Bachelorstudium an unserer Fakultät
    Ricardo Usbeck (Speaker)

    Activity: talk or presentation in privat or public events › Transfer

View all activities

Press / Media

  1. Was KI im Studium wirklich bringt. Und wo die Gefahren lauern
    1 Media contribution

    Press/Media: Press/Media

  2. Rote Rosen: Wird Brigitte Antonius künftig durch eine KI ersetzt?
    1 time cited

    Press/Media: Press/Media

View all press/media coverage

Prizes

  1. 2025 Research Award of the School of Management & Technology
    Kai Moltzen (Recipient) Ricardo Usbeck (Recipient) ,

    Prize: Leuphana internal Prize, Scholaships, distinctions, appointments › Research

  2. Best Student Paper Award @ ICSC
    Ricardo Usbeck (Recipient) ,

    Prize: external Prizes, scholarships, distinctions, appointments › Research

  3. Best Paper Nominee by SEMANTiCS
    Ricardo Usbeck (Recipient) ,

    Prize: external Prizes, scholarships, distinctions, appointments › Research

  4. Honorable Mention by AI 2000 Most Influential Scholars
    Ricardo Usbeck (Recipient) ,

    Prize: external Prizes, scholarships, distinctions, appointments › Research

  5. Runner-up at BMW Technologietag Project Pitch Slam
    Ricardo Usbeck (Recipient) ,

    Prize: external Prizes, scholarships, distinctions, appointments › Research

View all prizes

Courses

AI for Research
Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
NFDI4DataScience and the AIX Lab at Leuphana University Lüneburg are hosting their third summer school on Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Graphs for Scholarly Data. Join us for two days (noon-to-noon) of interesting discussions and insights, networking, and summer vibes on the beautiful Leuphana campus.
Under the theme "AI for Research", the third edition of AIKG SD focuses on building trustworthy, explainable, and reproducible AI-driven research tools. Besides, it covers the overarching role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Knowledge Graphs (KGs) in the scholarly landscape, particularly on integrating AI solutions with domain-specific KGs and curated scholarly data to support researchers throughout the research lifecycle.
Next appointment:
Thursday, 2026-09-24 at 12:00
Room: intern
AI-based Applications
Debayan Banerjee, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
In this seminar course, students will build a functional RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) based Chatbot to perform Question Answering over a set of PDF documents.
Next appointment:
Thursday, 2026-04-30 at 12:15
Room: C 40.254 Seminarraum
Creative Space for Artificial Intelligence (SBP)
Martin Jan-Ulrich Kohler, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
Creative Spaces, Maker Spaces, FabLabs sind kreative, emanzipatorische Zugänge zum Lernen und Gestalten mit digitalen Technologien.

Dabei spielen konkrete Praktiken (Making), kollaboratives Lernen und inkrementelles Arbeiten mit Prototypen eine wichtige Rolle im gemeinschaftlichen Lern- und Arbeitsprozess. Im Verlauf des Seminars werden im Creative Space der Leuphana unterschiedliche Arbeitsmethoden aus Design und Zukunftsforschung angewandt, um in Gruppen ein digitales Artefakt zu entwickeln.
Technik soll dabei aber nicht affirmativ hingenommen, sondern aktiv und kritisch hinterfragt werden. Dafür sind die Aufgabenstellung und Entwicklung der Abschlussarbeit als Critical Design angelegt.

Das Artefakt kann in Bereichen wie Umweltsensorik, der Robotik oder anderen Feldern der angewandten Informatik angesiedelt sein. Dieses Semester legen wir einen besonderen Fokus auf "Embodied AI".

Für einen Einblick werfen Sie gerne einen Blick auf die Webseite des Creative Space: creativespace.leuphana.de

Die Prüfungsleistung besteht in der Entwicklung, Dokumentation und Präsentation eines über den Verlauf des Seminars hinweg entwickelten Prototyps als "object for debate".
Next appointment:
Monday, 2026-05-04 at 14:15
Room: C 12.006 Seminarraum
Explainable AI and Visualisation
Kai Moltzen, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
Aussagekräftige und ansprechende Visualisierungen
- Gestaltungsprinzipien für die Visualisierung quantitativer Daten
- Telling stories with data: What to look for & How to design?
- Im Laufe der Zeit & Proportionen, Unterschiede & (räumliche) Zusammenhänge

Erklärbare KI
- Relevanz und Konzepte der Interpretierbarkeit
- Taxonomie und Evaluation von Erklärungen
- Interpretierbare Modelle, z.B. lineare Regression und Entscheidungsbäume
- Lokale modellagnostische Methoden, z.B. LIME (Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations),
- Von lokalen zu globalen modellagnostischen Erklärungen mit SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations)
- Modellspezifische Erklärungen für Neuronale Netze, z.B. Learned Features und Pixel Attribution Maps
- Erklärbarkeit im Zeitalter von Deep Learning und großen Sprachmodellen (LLMs)
- Aktuelle, relevante Forschungsliteratur
- Regulatorische Anforderungen wie der EU AI Act
- Diskussion über die Zukunft der Mensch-KI-Interaktion, Herausforderungen bei der Erklärbarkeit und weiterführende Ansätze, um die Erklärungen von KI-Modellen transparenter und nachvollziehbarer zu gestalten.
Next appointment:
Thursday, 2026-04-30 at 10:15
Room: C 40.254 Seminarraum
Foundations of AI
Anna Ehrenberg, Martin Jan-Ulrich Kohler, Kai Moltzen, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
This module introduces key AI concepts, primarily focusing on technical topics such as machine learning, neural networks, and algorithms.

Students will learn methods from regression to advanced techniques in language and image processing, integrating these with an understanding of technological and societal impacts.

The Creative Space for Human and Artificial Intelligence serves as a hub for project-based learning and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-04-29 at 08:30
Room: C 12.105 Seminarraum
Foundations of AI - Exercise Group 1
Kai Moltzen, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
The exercise builds on lecture content, offering practical engagement with AI technologies. Students will perform hands-on projects within the Creative Space, involving both software and hardware components, to deploy their project solutions effectively. The exercise accommodates individual learning paths, allowing students to tailor their projects according to their specific interests.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-04-29 at 10:15
Room: C B.055a Creative Space
Foundations of AI - Exercise Group 2
Anna Ehrenberg, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
The exercise builds on lecture content, offering practical engagement with AI technologies. Students will perform hands-on projects within the Creative Space, involving both software and hardware components, to deploy their project solutions effectively. The exercise accommodates individual learning paths, allowing students to tailor their projects according to their specific interests.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-04-29 at 12:15
Room: C B.055a Creative Space
Foundations of AI - Exercise Group 3
Anna Ehrenberg, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
The exercise builds on lecture content, offering practical engagement with AI technologies. Students will perform hands-on projects within the Creative Space, involving both software and hardware components, to deploy their project solutions effectively. The exercise accommodates individual learning paths, allowing students to tailor their projects according to their specific interests.
Next appointment:
Friday, 2026-05-01 at 10:15
Room: C B.055a Creative Space
Master´s Forum
Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
Students will learn methods for managing their Master's thesis writing, report on their progress, and present it for discussion.

In particular, students will learn how to write a master's thesis and provide effective feedback. Additionally, they will learn how to use AI to write their thesis and craft an AI disclaimer.
Next appointment:
Tuesday, 2026-05-12 at 14:15
Room: C 6.317 Seminarraum
Research Colloquium Business Informatics & Data Science
Olga Abramova, Ulf Brefeld, Paul Drews, Burkhardt Funk, Peter Niemeyer, Kathrin Padberg-Gehle, Ricardo Usbeck
⌄
The Research Colloquium at the Institute for Information Systems (IIS) at Leuphana University is a dynamic and interdisciplinary platform for scholarly exchange, critical dialogue, and academic networking focused on PhD students in and around Data Science and AI. Designed to foster a vibrant research culture, the colloquium brings together faculty, researchers, doctoral candidates, and external guests to discuss current topics in the field of information systems and beyond.

Our colloquium features a diverse set of formats:

* Research Talks: IIS faculty and doctoral researchers present ongoing projects and recent findings, receiving constructive feedback in a collaborative environment.

* Invited Expert Lectures: Renowned national and international scholars are invited to share cutting-edge research and theoretical insights, offering new perspectives and fostering academic exchange.

* Startup & Industry Talks: Entrepreneurs and professionals from startups and established companies discuss real-world challenges and innovations at the intersection of business and technology, providing practical insights and networking opportunities.

* Interdisciplinary Dialogues: The colloquium also opens space for collaborative sessions across disciplines, reflecting the integrative and transdisciplinary mission of Leuphana University.

Open to members of the university and interested guests, the IIS Research Colloquium serves as an essential forum for inspiration, collaboration, and advancing impactful research.
Next appointment:
Wednesday, 2026-05-27 at 14:00
Room: C 7.019 Seminarraum