PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Olaf Ronneberger

Olaf Ronneberger leads a pattern recognition group at the University of Freiburg and also works at Google DeepMind in London. He co-authored U-Net, a convolutional network for biomedical image segmentation that won two transmitted-light categories of the ISBI 2015 cell tracking challenge. Earlier, DAGM Awards in 2005 and 2006 recognized his papers on gray-scale invariants. In 2021 he is one of the authors of the Nature paper on AlphaFold, which predicts protein structures.

Works
176
Citations
178,814
h-index
51

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.

Photo of Olaf Ronneberger

Timeline

  1. 2002

    Automated pollen recognition

    The 2002 paper Automated Pollen Recognition using 3D Volume Images from Fluorescence Microscopy appears in Aerobiologia with him as an author.

  2. 2005–2006

    Two DAGM awards

    He wins DAGM Awards in 2005 and 2006 for papers on gray-scale invariants, one on segmentation and classification and one on 3D cell nuclei localization.

  3. 2015

    The U-Net architecture

    Co-written with Philipp Fischer and Thomas Brox in 2015, U-Net wins two transmitted-light categories of the ISBI 2015 cell tracking challenge.

  4. January 2017

    A U-Net talk in London

    At a January 2017 talk at Imperial College London, he speaks on U-Net, with Google DeepMind and the University of Freiburg as his affiliations.

  5. July 2021

    Co-author of AlphaFold

    Nature publishes Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold in July 2021, with him among the authors and DeepMind, London, as the affiliation.

  6. As of October 2026

    Group leader in Freiburg

    In 2026 he leads the pattern recognition and image processing group at the University of Freiburg as an apl. professor, and he also works at Google DeepMind in London.

Sources and credits

Photo: lmb.informatik.uni-freiburg.de; Homepage of Olaf Ronneberger; creator not stated. License: Not stated by source. Source: lmb.informatik.uni-freiburg.de. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. Homepage of Olaf Ronneberger lmb.informatik.uni-freiburg.de. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation lmb.informatik.uni-freiburg.de. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. [1505.04597] U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation arxiv.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. Events for January 11, 2017 – BioMedIA biomedia.doc.ic.ac.uk. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold | Nature nature.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. apl. Prof. Olaf Ronneberger — Artificial Intelligence in Freiburg ai.uni-freiburg.de. Checked 14 October 2026.