PD Dr. Thomas Bocklitz, head of the Photonic Data Science Department at Leibniz IPHT, has received and accepted a call from the University of Bayreuth. In addition to his management position in Jena, the scientist has been taking on a professorship for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the field of spectroscopy and microscopy at the Upper Franconian university since March 15, 2023. At the beginning of the new summer semester, he will be conducting research and teaching on computer-assisted methods.
 
The physicist has been working at Leibniz IPHT since 2016 and has headed the Photonic Data Science Department since 2019. The focus of his research work is the evaluation of photonic data using computer-aided algorithms. These AI-based methods offer the potential to effectively support numerous diagnostic procedures in the field of optical health technologies. They allow complex spectroscopic and microscopic images to be evaluated quickly. In this way, physicians receive valuable information from biological samples that can provide important information for the diagnosis and therapy of diseases.
 
The use of AI methods, especially for the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, is also one of the central topics of the newly emerging Leibniz Center for Photonics in Infection Research (LPI). Together with his team, the Jena scientist PD Dr. Thomas Bocklitz contributes to significantly improving the analysis of optical data using AI and machine learning methods to determine infectious agents and their antibiotic resistance.
 
PD Dr. Thomas Bocklitz will continue to advance the development and refinement of computer-assisted algorithms that are of interest to medicine as well as to the life and environmental sciences as well as pharmacy in the future, not only at Leibniz IPHT and LPI. Parallel to his leadership position in Jena, the scientist will start his research and teaching activities on AI-based topics in the field of spectroscopy and microscopy at the University of Bayreuth in Upper Franconia from the summer semester 2023. An essential core of his work will be the automated evaluation and modelling of spectroscopic data, which are relevant for the investigation of microplastics, among other things.
 
“We congratulate PD Dr. Thomas Bocklitz on this success, which he has received with his appointment at the University of Bayreuth. The close proximity in terms of expertise and content between his current and future research priorities will create exciting synergies that will promote scientific exchange between Jena and Bayreuth and advance our work on better diagnostics and therapy thanks to AI,” says Prof. Dr. Jürgen Popp, scientific director at Leibniz IPHT.