PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jalal Etesami

Jalal Etesami is a computer scientist who works on causal inference and explainable AI at the Technical University of Munich. He earned bachelor's degrees at Isfahan University of Technology in 2009, a master's at Jacobs University Bremen, and a PhD on causal inference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 under Negar Kiyavash. In 2016 he coauthored a paper on recovering the causal structure of Hawkes process networks, then worked as a research scientist at the Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence and as a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL from 2020. A 2022 paper with Sina Akbari and Kiyavash on minimum cost intervention design won an Outstanding Paper Runner Up award at ICML, and he joined TUM as an assistant professor in January 2023. He is an assistant professor in TUM's computer science department, where he holds the professorship for Decision Analytics.

Timeline

  1. 2009–2017

    From Isfahan to an Illinois PhD

    He earns two bachelor's degrees at Isfahan University of Technology in 2009, one in electrical engineering and one in applied mathematics, and then a master's degree in electrical engineering at Jacobs University Bremen. He completes a PhD on causal inference in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017, working with Negar Kiyavash.

  2. 2016

    Causal structure of Hawkes processes

    In 2016, he coauthors the paper "Learning Network of Multivariate Hawkes Processes: A Time Series Approach" with Negar Kiyavash, Kun Zhang and Kushagra Singhal. The paper recovers the causal structure in networks of multivariate linear Hawkes processes.

  3. By 2020

    Research scientist at Bosch

    He works as a research scientist at the Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence in Germany, developing self-driving vehicles and modeling complex environments.

  4. 2020

    Postdoc at EPFL

    He joins EPFL in 2020 as a postdoctoral researcher in the Computer Science department and the College of Management of Technology. He works with Negar Kiyavash, who had moved from the United States to EPFL, and with Matthias Grossglauser.

  5. 2022

    An ICML runner-up paper award

    In 2022, the paper "Minimum Cost Intervention Design for Causal Effect Identification", written with Sina Akbari and Negar Kiyavash, receives an Outstanding Paper Runner Up award at ICML. It proves that designing the cheapest set of interventions for identifying a causal effect is NP-complete and gives an algorithm that finds the optimal solution or a logarithmic-factor approximation.

  6. January 2023

    Assistant professor at TUM

    In January 2023, he joins the Technical University of Munich as an assistant professor in the computer science department. He holds the professorship for Decision Analytics at the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology from 2023.

  7. As of October 2026

    Decision analytics at TUM

    He is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at TUM, in the Chair of Decision Science & Systems. His research focuses on explainable artificial intelligence and statistical decision-making.

Career

  1. NowTechnical University of MunichAssistant professor
  2. From 2020EPFLPostdoctoral researcher
  3. Robert BoschResearch scientist

Education

  1. 2017University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignPhD
  2. 2009Isfahan University of TechnologyBachelor's degrees
  3. Jacobs University BremenMaster's degree

From the biography.

  1. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Technical University of Munich. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  2. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Technical University of Munich. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  3. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Technical University of Munich. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Technical University of Munich. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Congratulations to Dr. Jalal Etesami for his professorship position! - EPFL actu.epfl.ch. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. [1603.04319] Learning Network of Multivariate Hawkes Processes: A Time Series Approach arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. ICML 2022 Awards icml.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Minimum Cost Intervention Design for Causal Effect Identification proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Prof. Dr. Jalal Etesami - Hightech-Agenda Bayern hightechagenda.de. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Prof. Jalal Etesami - Chair of Decision Science & Systems cs.cit.tum.de. Checked 21 October 2026.