Benedikt Loepp

I have a PhD (Dr.-Ing.) in Computer Science and am currently working as a program manager (AI for Agri-Food) at Fraunhofer IMS. Besides, I am a guest lecturer the University of Duisburg-Essen. I have a passion for research at the intersection of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence. In the last years, this work has mainly been focused on recommender systems and intelligent decision support, building on a research approach that fully integrates the user perspective, especially by improving interactivity, explainability, and transparency. This includes preference elicitation, user modeling, and interaction design, as well as studying the user experience and thus the acceptance of the systems by means of empirical research methods.

I received a bachelor’s degree (2011) and a master’s degree (2013) in Applied Computer Science as well as a PhD in Computer Science (Dr.-Ing.) from the University of Duisburg-Essen. From 2012 to 2023, I worked there as a doctoral researcher and as a postdoc in the Interactive Systems group. From 2012 to 2020, I was also the coordinator for computer science in the MINTroduce project at the University of Duisburg-Essen, in which I supported first-year students and was responsible for the department's preliminary courses. Moreover, I was involved in the colognE-mobil project part II and contributed to several research developments, e.g., the concept of blended recommending, the TagMF framework, the archaeological sandbox, and several GWAPs. In addition to research, I enjoyed my teaching activities, including a course on recommender systems. After my time at the University of Duisburg-Essen, I joined the University of Koblenz as an assistant professor (Juniorprofessor) for computational social science and data science.

For many years, I was the webmaster of the official ACM RecSys website, serving as web chair for the conference until 2020. For RecSys, I was also active as student volunteer chair and proceedings chair, and as publicity chair for ACM UMAP in 2021. I regularly serve as a committee member and reviewer for a variety of journals and conferences, including CHI, Frontiers AI, IJHCS, INTERACT, IUI, RecSys, and UMAP. I was a member of the Global Young Faculty VII and co-founded the GI group on User-centered AI.  

Contact

• Mail: benedikt [at] loepp [dot] eu
• LinkedIn: Benedikt Loepp
• X / Twitter: @BenediktLoepp
• Mastodon: @BenediktLoepp@nrw.social
• Bluesky: @benedikt-loepp.bsky.social

Publications

2025

• Ziller, C., Loepp, B., Köchling, G., Kindermann, B., & Fadeeva, Y. (to appear).
  Willingness to Share Personal Data Online: The Role of Social Influence and Sustainability.
  Technology in Society.
   

2024

• Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2024).
  Exploring the Potential of Generative AI for Augmenting Choice-Based Preference Elicitation in Recommender Systems.
  In UMAP '24: Adjunct Proceedings of the 32nd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (pp. 114–119). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Kleemann, T., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2024).
  Knowledge Graph-Based Integration of Conversational Advisors and Faceted Filtering.
  Interacting with Computers, iwae044.
   

2023

• Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2023).
  How Users Ride the Carousel: Exploring the Design of Multi-List Recommender Interfaces From a User Perspective.
  In RecSys '23: Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (pp. 1090–1095). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Loepp, B. (2023).
  Multi-List Interfaces for Recommender Systems: Survey and Future Directions.
  Frontiers in Big Data, 6.
   
• Ziegler, J., & Loepp, B. (2023).
  Interactive Recommendation Systems.
  In Palanque, P., & Winckler, M. (Eds.), Handbook of Human Computer Interaction. Cham, Germany: Springer.
   
• Ziegler, J., & Loepp, B. (2023).
  User-Centered Recommender Systems.
  In Augstein, M., Herder, E., & Wörndl, W. (Eds.), Personalized Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 33–58). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
   
• Buschek, D., Hauptmann, H., Heuer, H., Frommel, J., & Loepp, B. (2023).
  Workshop on User-Centered Artificial Intelligence (UCAI '23).
  In Mensch & Computer 2023 – Workshopband. Gesellschaft für Informatik.

2022

• Loepp, B. (2022).
  Recommender Systems Alone Are Not Everything: Towards a Broader Perspective in the Evaluation of Recommender Systems.
  In PERSPECTIVES '22: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Perspectives on the Evaluation of Recommender Systems.
   
• Kleemann, T., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2022).
  Towards Multi-Method Support for Product Search and Recommending.
  In UMAP '22: Adjunct Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (pp. 74–79). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Buschek, D., Hauptmann, H., Heuer, H., Loepp, B., Riener, A., & Yigitbas, E. (2022).
  Workshop on User-Centered Artificial Intelligence (UCAI '22).
  In Mensch & Computer 2022 – Workshopband. Gesellschaft für Informatik.
   

2021

• Loepp, B. (2021).
  Interactive Methods for Model-based Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems.
  University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany.
   
• Kleemann, T., Wagner, M., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2021).
  Modeling User Interaction at the Convergence of Filtering Mechanisms, Recommender Algorithms and Advisory Components.
  In Mensch & Computer 2021 – Tagungsband (pp. 531–543). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Loepp, B. (2021).
  On the Convergence of Intelligent Decision Aids.
  In UCAI '21: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on User-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Gesellschaft für Informatik.
   
• Buschek, D., Hauptmann, H., Loepp, B., & Wörndl, W. (2021).
  Workshop on User-Centered Artificial Intelligence (UCAI '21).
  In Mensch & Computer 2021 – Workshopband. Gesellschaft für Informatik.
   

2020

• Naveed, S., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2020).
  On the Use of Feature-based Collaborative Explanations: An Empirical Comparison of Explanation Styles.
  In ExUM '20: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Transparent Personalization Methods based on Heterogeneous Personal Data (pp. 226–232). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Augstein, M., Buschek, D., Herder, E., Loepp, B., Yigitbas, E., & Ziegler, J. (2020).
  Workshop on User-Centered Artificial Intelligence (UCAI '20).
  In Mensch & Computer 2020 – Workshopband. Gesellschaft für Informatik.
   
• Buschek, D., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2020).
  Editorial of the i-com Special Issue on User-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
  i-com, 19(3), 169.
   
• Ziegler, J., & Loepp, B. (2020).
  Empfehlungssysteme.
  In Kollmann, T. (Ed.), Handbuch Digitale Wirtschaft (pp. 717–741). Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer Gabler.
   

2019

• Loepp, B., Donkers, T., Kleemann, T., & Ziegler, J. (2019).
  Interactive Recommending with Tag-Enhanced Matrix Factorization (TagMF).
  International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 121, 21–41.
   
• Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2019).
  Towards Interactive Recommending in Model-based Collaborative Filtering Systems.
  In RecSys '19: Proceedings of the 13th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (pp. 546–547). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2019).
  Measuring the Impact of Recommender Systems – A Position Paper on Item Consumption in User Studies.
  In Impact RS '19: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Impact of Recommender Systems.
   
• Kunkel, J., Loepp, B., Dolff, E., & Ziegler, J. (2019).
  LittleMissFits: Ein Game-With-A-Purpose zur Evaluierung subjektiver Verständlichkeit von latenten Faktoren in Empfehlungssystemen.
  In Gam-R '19: Proceedings of the Mensch & Computer 2019 Workshop Gam-R – Gamification Reloaded. Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.
   
• Loepp, B., Donkers, T., Kleemann, T., & Ziegler, J. (2019).
   invited to the sister conference best paper track 
  Impact of Consuming Suggested Items on the Assessment of Recommendations in User Studies on Recommender Systems.
  In IJCAI '19: Proceedings of the 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (pp. 6201–6205). IJCAI Organization.
   

2018

• Loepp, B., Donkers, T., Kleemann, T., & Ziegler, J. (2018).  best short paper 
  Impact of Item Consumption on Assessment of Recommendations in User Studies.
  In RecSys '18: Proceedings of the 12th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (pp. 49–53). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Kunkel, J., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2018).
  Understanding Latent Factors Using a GWAP.
  In LBRS@RecSys '18: Proceedings of the Late-Breaking Results track part of the 12th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems.
   
• Kunkel, J., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2018).
  Ein Online-Spiel zur Benennung latenter Faktoren in Empfehlungssystemen.
  In Mensch & Computer 2018 – Tagungsband. Gesellschaft für Informatik.
   
• Donkers, T., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2018).
  Explaining Recommendations by Means of User Reviews.
  In ExSS '18: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Explainable Smart Systems.
   
• Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2018).
  Recommending Running Routes: Framework and Demonstrator.
  In ComplexRec '18: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Recommendation in Complex Scenarios (pp. 26–29).
   

2017

• Kunkel, J., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2017).
  A 3D Item Space Visualization for Presenting and Manipulating User Preferences in Collaborative Filtering.
  In IUI '17: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (pp. 3–15). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Donkers, T., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2017).
  Sequential User-Based Recurrent Neural Network Recommendations.
  In RecSys '17: Proceedings of the 11th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (pp. 152–160). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Feuerbach, J., Loepp, B., Barbu, C.-M., & Ziegler, J. (2017).
  Enhancing an Interactive Recommendation System with Review-based Information Filtering.
  In IntRS '17: Proceedings of the 4th Joint Workshop on Interfaces and Human Decision Making for Recommender Systems (pp. 2–9).
   
• Biefang, K., Kunkel, J., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2017).  best demo 
  Eine Sandbox zur physisch-virtuellen Exploration von Ausgrabungsstätten.
  In Mensch & Computer 2017 – Workshopband. Gesellschaft für Informatik.
   
• Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2017).
  Empirische Bedarfsanalyse zur intermodalen Navigation und dem Einsatz von Informationssystemen zur Förderung ihrer Attraktivität.
  In Proff, H. & Fojcik, T. M. (Eds.), Innovative Produkte und Dienstleistungen in der Mobilität: Technische und betriebswirtschaftliche Aspekte (pp. 409–426). Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer Gabler.
   
• Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2017).
  On User Awareness in Model-Based Collaborative Filtering Systems.
  In AWARE '17: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Awareness Interfaces and Interactions.
   

2016

• Donkers, T., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2016).
  Tag-Enhanced Collaborative Filtering for Increasing Transparency and Interactive Control.
  In UMAP '16: Proceedings of the 24th ACM International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (pp. 169–173). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Loepp, B., Barbu, C.-M., & Ziegler, J. (2016).
  Interactive Recommending: Framework, State of Research and Future Challenges.
  In EnCHIReS '16: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Engineering Computer-Human Interaction in Recommender Systems (pp. 3–13).
   
• Donkers, T., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2016).
  Towards Understanding Latent Factors and User Profiles by Enhancing Matrix Factorization with Tags.
  In RecSys '16: Poster Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems.
   

2015

• Loepp, B., Herrmanny, K., & Ziegler, J. (2015).
  Blended Recommending: Integrating Interactive Information Filtering and Algorithmic Recommender Techniques.
  In CHI '15: Proceedings of the 33rd ACM International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 975–984). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Loepp, B., Herrmanny, K., & Ziegler, J. (2015).
  Merging Interactive Information Filtering and Recommender Algorithms – Model and Concept Demonstrator.
  i-com, 14(1), 5–17.
   
• Donkers, T., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2015).
  Merging Latent Factors and Tags to Increase Interactive Control of Recommendations.
  In RecSys '15: Poster Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems.
   
• Kunkel, J., Loepp, B., & Ziegler, J. (2015).  honorable mention 
  3D-Visualisierung zur Eingabe von Präferenzen in Empfehlungssystemen.
  In Mensch & Computer 2015: Gemeinsam – Arbeit – Erleben (pp. 123–132). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
   

2014

• Loepp, B., Hussein, T., & Ziegler, J. (2014).  honorable mention 
  Choice-Based Preference Elicitation for Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems.
  In CHI '14: Proceedings of the 32nd ACM International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3085–3094). New York, NY, USA: ACM.
   
• Herrmanny, K., Schering, S., Berger, R., Loepp, B., Günter, T., Hussein, T., & Ziegler, J. (2014).
  MyMovieMixer: Ein hybrider Recommender mit visuellem Bedienkonzept.
  In Mensch & Computer 2014: Interaktiv unterwegs – Freiräume gestalten (pp. 45–54). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
   
• Loepp, B. & Ziegler, J. (2014).
  Komplexe Präferenzprofile für intermodale Navigation.
  In Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Automotive HMI (pp. 191–198). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
   

2013

• Loepp, B., Hussein, T., & Ziegler, J. (2013).
  Interaktive Empfehlungsgenerierung mit Hilfe latenter Produktfaktoren.
  In Mensch & Computer 2013: Interaktive Vielfalt (pp. 17–26). München, Germany: Oldenbourg Verlag.
   

A list of publications is also available in the digital library of the University of Duisburg-Essen, via ORCID (iD: 0000-0001-9059-5324), or in my Google Scholar profile.