International Visits Deepen ICSI-DAAD Collaboration

Welcoming international visitors is a key element of ICSI’s mission, reflecting the institute’s belief that the best ideas emerge from diverse perspectives. The ICSI-DAAD International Fellowship exemplifies this commitment, offering postdoctoral researchers from German universities the opportunity to collaborate closely with researchers from ICSI, UC Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (known as Berkeley Lab).

In several engagements over the past year—in Germany, in California, and at several conferences in between—leaders and researchers from ICSI and DAAD have enjoyed a fruitful exchange of ideas to build on a strong record of collaboration between the institutions. 

Conference conversations 

In September 2025, ICSI Research Affiliate Dr. Malcolm Slaney traveled to Berlin, where he met with DAAD leaders and participated in the AI Grid Summit. The event brought AI experts together with ecosystem partners and young researchers to consider challenges, opportunities, and career paths in today’s AI environment. 

ICSI’s Malcolm Slaney (second row, far left) in Germany with the management team of the AI Grid Summit. Photo by Stephanie Loos. 

In August 2025, ICSI Director and CEO Lea Shanley joined DAAD President Joybrato Mukherjee and other leaders at the Annual GAIN Conference, a gathering of the German Academic International Network. Dr. Shanley spoke on a panel titled “Transatlantic Innovation Economies: Building Bridges from Labs to Markets” as part of a pre-conference discussion of the mutual benefits of transatlantic exchange for academic researchers.  

Dr. Shanley also served as a judge in the April 2025 Falling Walls Lab, a pitch competition showcasing innovative research as part of a global series of events that aim to foster interdisciplinary collaboration held in Berkeley and hosted by the German Center for Research and Innovation San Francisco. Winners from local competitions present their ideas at the Falling Walls Science Summit held annually in Berlin coinciding with the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Earlier in the year, Dr. Shanley participated in the DFG West Coast Forum, which took place in San Francisco and focused on best practices for regional collaborations and opportunities to build upon existing research collaboration and university ties between Germany and California. 

DAAD president visits ICSI

ICSI Director and CEO Lea Shanley met with DAAD President Joybrato Mukherjee in August 2024. 

In August 2024, ICSI hosted a small delegation led by DAAD President Joybrato Mukherjee, who was accompanied by Hanni Geist, head of DAAD Information Center San Francisco, and Zahar Barth-Manzoori, director of the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) San Francisco. During the gathering, ICSI Director and CEO Lea Shanley provided an overview of ICSI. 

“The DAAD-ICSI partnership exemplifies the mutual value of international collaboration,” said Shanley. “For ICSI, it brings exceptional early-career researchers who enrich our work and become long-term members of our community. Meetings like these strengthen the partnership by helping to foster a shared vision for the fellowship program, the outstanding research experiences it provides, and the emerging researchers it serves.”

Collin Baker, senior researcher in artificial intelligence, provided the delegation with an update on FrameNet, a pioneering ICSI project that has become a key resource for understanding semantic relationships in language. Scott Shenker, research director for the extensible internet at ICSI, and ICSI Vice President Michael Mahoney also provided updates on research in their areas, which include software-defined networking and large-scale machine learning. 

Several alumni of the ICSI-DAAD program shared testimonials highlighting how their experiences shaped their careers and sparked continuing collaborations. Damian Borth, ICSI board member and director of the Institute for Computer Science at the University of St. Gallen, spoke about his postdoctoral experience at ICSI, where he was involved in the creation of the YFCC100m dataset, being a cornerstone for early deep learning research. Robin Sommer spoke about his work as co-founder of Corelight, a startup spun out of the work he conducted at ICSI.

"ICSI is truly a special place, offering a rare combination of world-class academic research, unparalleled freedom for self-directed inquiry—even for early-career researchers—and exceptional visibility through its close ties to UC Berkeley and the Bay Area tech community,” said Sommer. “This makes ICSI an ideal launching pad for young computer scientists supported by DAAD. I was pleased to share my story during the visit, with the hope of illustrating the significant impact DAAD's support can have.”

Participants in the DAAD President’s trip to ICSI in California (left to right) included Scott Shenker, Collin Baker, Michael Mahoney, Hanni Geist, Zahar Barth-Manzoori, Damian Borth (TV, upper left), Robin Sommer (TV, bottom), Joybrato Mukherjee, Lea Shanley, and Jaci Kreibich. 

ICSI delegation visits Germany

A few months before the visit at ICSI, Shanley and Borth traveled around Germany to visit DAAD leaders along with a number of computer science research groups and organizations. 

"The partnership between ICSI and DAAD is vital for fostering international collaboration and innovation in computer science and AI,” said Borth. “Visiting with university researchers and the DAAD team provided an invaluable opportunity to strengthen these ties.”

During the visit, they met with Laure Poirson, project lead at the AI Grid, a collaborative network focused on advancing artificial intelligence research and fostering partnerships among researchers and institutions. 

At the AI Grid, Lea Shanley and Laure Poirson (pictured) spoke about pathways for AI Grid members to join ICSI postdoctoral programs after completing their PhDs. 

Shanley and Borth also visited BIFOLD - Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data during the trip. BIFOLD conducts groundbreaking foundational research in big data management and machine learning. 

Pictured at the BIFOLD visit are Volker Markl, Lea Shanley, Adrian Locher, Jack Thoms, Begüm Demir, and Damian Borth (left to right).  

The Germany visit also included a meeting at the DFKI Lab in Berlin, which conducts research on human-centric AI with a focus on socially relevant topics and scientific excellence. Pictured are Wolfgang Wahlster, founding director of DFKI, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and former ICSI Board Chair, Lea Shanley, Damian Borth, and Emmanuel Planas, Global Liaison Office of the National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo (left to right).