PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Michael Thielscher

Michael Thielscher is an AI researcher whose work includes robot reasoning and general game playing. He earned a postgraduate diploma in 1992 and a computer science PhD in 1994 at Darmstadt, received a 1998 award for his Habilitation thesis, and became an associate professor in Dresden. He won an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship before joining UNSW as a professor, coauthored a book on general game playing, and led KR Inc. As of October 2026, he is a professor at UNSW, works on Urban Copilot, and is an IJCAI trustee and Program Chair for IJCAI-28.

Works
219
Citations
2,976
h-index
26
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1992–1994

    Degrees at Darmstadt

    He earns a postgraduate diploma in 1992 and a PhD in computer science in 1994, both with distinction, at Darmstadt University.

  2. 1997–1998

    Associate professor at Dresden

    He becomes an associate professor in Dresden's Computer Science Department in 1997. In 1998, Darmstadt University alumni award his Habilitation thesis the Award for Research Excellence.

  3. 2005–2006

    Reasoning Robots and Fluxplayer

    In 2005, he publishes Reasoning Robots: The Art and Science of Programming Robotic Agents. With Stephan Schiffel, he coauthors Fluxplayer, which wins the AAAI General Game Playing Competition in 2006.

  4. 2009–2010

    An ARC Fellowship and UNSW

    He wins an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship in 2009 and joins UNSW as a professor in 2010.

  5. 2012–2018

    General Game Playing and chair roles

    With Michael Genesereth, he coauthors General Game Playing in 2014, a book that shows how to build programs that play unfamiliar games from their rules. He serves as Program Co-Chair for AI'12, KI'14 and KR'18.

  6. 2020–2024

    KR and UNSW AI leadership

    He serves as president of KR Inc. from 2020 to 2022. In November 2024, he is the acting director of the UNSW AI Institute and works with Jill Bennett's team on AI planning for digital companions.

  7. 2025–2030

    IJCAI trustee and program chair

    He is an IJCAI trustee for 2025–2030 and the Program Chair for IJCAI-28.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and knowledge engineer

    As of October 2026, he is a professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW and a knowledge engineer on Urban Copilot. With the City Futures Research Centre, he extracts planning expertise for an AI assistant that interprets development controls and automates assessment workflows.

Career

  1. Since 2010UNSW SydneyProfessor, Acting Director
  2. 2020–2022KR Inc.President
  3. 1998–2010Technische Universität Dresden
  4. From 1997Computer Science Department in DresdenAssociate Professor

Education

  1. 1994TU DarmstadtPhD in computer science
  2. 1992TU DarmstadtPostgraduate diploma

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Ramification and causality1997 · Artificial Intelligence · 182 citations
  2. Iterated belief revision, revised2006 · Artificial Intelligence · 162 citations
  3. FLUX: A logic programming method for reasoning agents2005 · Theory and Practice of Logic Programming · 149 citations
  4. From situation calculus to fluent calculus: State update axioms as a solution to the inferential frame problem1999 · Artificial Intelligence · 141 citations
  5. A General Game Description Language for Incomplete Information Games2010 · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence · 125 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Michael Thielscher. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes UNSW Sydney. 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.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes UNSW Sydney. 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.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes UNSW Sydney. 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.

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. Professor Michael Thielscher unsw.edu.au. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Michael Thielscher videolectures.net. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. AAAI-06: Twenty-First Conference on Artificial Intelligence aaai.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. General Game Playing books.google.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Is it really possible to address loneliness through AI? unsw.edu.au. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Current Trustees ijcai.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Future Conferences ijcai.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. AI Insider: Integrating expert knowledge inside.unsw.edu.au. Checked 20 October 2026.