PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jan Alexandersson

Jan Alexandersson is a researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) in Saarbrücken whose work runs from dialogue processing in speech translation to AI for ambient assisted living, accessibility and health. He earned a Master of Science at the University of Linköping in 1993, joined DFKI in 1994, coauthored a 1997 paper on the dialogue module of the Verbmobil speech-to-speech translation system, and defended his PhD at the University of the Saarland in 2003. In 2006 he founded the DFKI Competence Center for Ambient Assisted Living, led the EU project I2HOME, and was elected President of the OpenURC Alliance in 2011. Today he is a Research Fellow and Principal Researcher in DFKI's Cognitive Assistants department and a group leader in its Social, Cognitive and Affective AI group.

Now at
DFKI
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Timeline

  1. 1993–1994

    A Linköping degree, then DFKI

    He earns a Master of Science from the University of Linköping in 1993. His career at DFKI in Saarbrücken starts in 1994.

  2. 1997

    Dialogue processing in Verbmobil

    In 1997, he coauthors a paper with Norbert Reithinger and Elisabeth Maier on the dialogue module of Verbmobil, a speech-to-speech translation system. The module combines several simple, efficient and robust components and contributes to correct translation from German to English.

  3. 2003

    A PhD at Saarland University

    He defends his PhD at the University of the Saarland in 2003. His DFKI projects cover spoken language translation in Verbmobil, multimodal human-computer interaction in SmartKom and Metalogue, and corpus summarization in AMI and AMIDA.

  4. 2006

    Founding the AAL Competence Center

    In 2006, after his PhD, he founds the DFKI Competence Center for Ambient Assisted Living. His research there centers on accessibility, user-centered design and development, and interdisciplinary work, mostly in the health domain.

  5. 2010

    Leading the I2HOME project

    In 2010, he is project leader of I2HOME, an EU project coordinated by DFKI that makes household appliances usable for people with cognitive disabilities and older people. By early 2010, more than 100 organisations and companies in Europe work with I2HOME technology.

  6. 2010–2011

    President of the OpenURC Alliance

    He is among the main contributors to the OpenURC consortium in 2010. In October 2011, the OpenURC Alliance is formally incorporated as a registered association at DFKI in Saarbrücken, and he is elected its President.

  7. As of October 2026

    Group leader at DFKI

    He is a Research Fellow and Principal Researcher in the Cognitive Assistants department at DFKI in Saarbrücken and group leader in the Social, Cognitive and Affective AI group. His research interests include AI in health, accessibility and multimodal human-computer interaction.

Career

  1. Since 1994DFKIResearch Fellow; Principal Researcher, Founder
  2. From 2011OpenURC AlliancePresident

Education

  1. 2003Saarland UniversityPhD
  2. 1993Linköping UniversityMaster of Science

From the biography.

  1. Nonprofit roles are 2.3 times as common in AI safetyIncludes DFKI. We estimate where people focused on safety, alignment and evaluation work. Nonprofit roles appear for 25.1% of safety people with known affiliations, compared with 11.0% in other areas.
  2. The top 10 organizations employed 22% of people shaping AI in 2025: 51% of company researchers and 21% of university researchersIncludes DFKI. We estimate the share of people shaping AI who worked at the top 10 organizations each year from 1955 to 2025, comparing concentration across companies, universities, and institutes and labs.
  3. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes DFKI. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes DFKI. 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 with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Persons – The Competence Center for Ambient Assisted Living ccaal.dfki.de. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Team – Social, Cognitive and Affective AI scaai.dfki.de. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Insights into the Dialogue Processing of VERBMOBIL arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. EU-Projekt gibt technisch weniger versierten Menschen Auftrieb | Nachrichten | CORDIS | Europäische Kommission cordis.europa.eu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. SLTC 2010 Invited talk ida.liu.se. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. About the Open URC Alliance — History, Members & Mission openurc.org. Checked 21 October 2026.