Dr. Johannes Jakubik

Hi there, I’m Johannes!

I am a Research Scientist within the Modeling & Algorithms for Impact team at IBM Research Europe. I co-lead work at the intersection of deep learning, quantum computing, and physical systems.

In the context of quantum computing, I work to make quantum optimization algorithms more practical, using deep learning to reduce the classical overhead and hardware bottlenecks that currently limit them. In the context of physical systems, I co-lead IBM Research’s activities on deep learning for our planetary system, pretraining and scaling multimodal deep models in collaborations with NASA, ESA, and the EU Horizon program.

My work has been awarded the NASA Agency Group Award, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Honor Award, and several IBM accomplishment awards, and has been featured in international and national media. I graduated with summa cum laude from KIT and ETH, where my research spanned across all relevant subfields of deep learning-based systems: data-centricity, model-centricity, and human-centricity. My thesis on data-centric AI has been awarded a national-level dissertation award by the VDE – one of the largest technology organizations in Europe. I also received a best paper award, and a best paper award nomination for theoretical contributions to human-centric AI. In fall 2024, I was fortunate enough to be recommended as a top candidate for a tenure track professorship at a German university of excellence. Together with a range of amazing co-authors, my work has been published in highly recognized journals and conferences.

I am fortunate enough to co-supervise several world-class Ph.D. students at ETH Zurich and Trinity College.

On weekends, you will find me somewhere in the mountains with my wife, our son, and our dog!