Deutsch Intern
    Data Science Chair

    Theses and Practica

    The following pages show open topics for practica, bachelor and master theses, sorted by application fields. We will be happy to provide information on further open topics upon request. Topics can be completed either in English or German.

    To find a topic for your thesis or practica follow these steps:

    • Find an area of interest: Explore the available topics listed below or read about our chair's general research topics and projects.
    • Inquire about other topics: If a specific project or general research area interests you or if you have your own ideas for a project you are welcome to reach out and ask about additional opportunities not explicitly listed.
    • Contact the supervisor: Once you have identified an area of interest, send an email directly to the designated supervisor (usually a research assistant or postdoc) mentioned for that topic to express your interest.
    • Discuss the details: After your initial contact, the supervisor will typically schedule a meeting to discuss the project details, specific requirements, and next steps with you in person.

    After finding a topic and having an initial discussion with your supervisor, the typical steps for completing a thesis at our chair are:

    • Familiarize yourself with the topic: Explore relevant literature and research the tools or technologies required for your project.
    • Write a proposal/abstract: In consultation with your supervisor, you will write a 1–2 page abstract outlining the goals and plans for your thesis. This document must also include a detailed timeline.
    • Present your topic: We require a short presentation of your planned work during our team meeting. This session is designed to gather feedback, generate ideas, and identify potential pitfalls.
    • Official registration: Once the abstract and plan are finalized, you must officially register your thesis with the examination office (Prüfungsamt). Please check your degree program's website for  the necessary paperwork.
    • Work on your thesis: This phase involves the core tasks of coding, experimenting, and writing. Usually, you will meet with your supervisor once a week for guidance. We also highly recommend spending one day a week working in our student pool to foster collaboration.
    • Submission: For the final submission, refer to your specific study regulations regarding formal requirements, such as the number of copies and digital formats required.
    • Colloquium: Depending on your study regulations, a graded colloquium (final presentation) may be required after you have submitted your written work.

    Open Topics

    10/06/2025 | Natural Language Processing, Misc.

    Foundation Large Language Model for HTML

    Current large language models (LLMs) have been trained on large corpora of texts and can solve many text-related tasks very well. This work aims to investigate various neural architectures for creating a foundation model for HTML. more
    10/06/2025 | Biological&Medical Data

    Assessing the Suitability of (Zero-Inflated) Negative Binomial Distributions for scRNA-seq Gene Expression Data

    Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data is highly sparse, with many zero values that pose challenges for statistical modeling. Two suitable distributions to use are the negative binomial (NB) and the zero-inflated negative… more
    10/06/2025 | Biological&Medical Data

    Using Explainable AI to Uncover Gene Relevance in scRNA-seq Data

    Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) provides detailed insights into gene expression at the cellular level. In this thesis, we use explainable AI (XAI) methods to investigate which genes most influence the predictions of a… more
    06/24/2025 | Physics & Deep Learning, Ecosystems

    Enhancing Regional Climate Projections with Deep Learning

    Global climate models play a vital role in predicting future climate conditions, such as temperature or precipitation. However, their coarse spatial resolution (typically 50–100 km) limits their ability to capture regional climate… more
    05/15/2025 | Physics & Deep Learning, Ecosystems

    Autoregressive Deep Learning Earth System Models

    Interested in AI and Climate Science? Simulating the Earth’s climate with Earth System Models (ESMs) is essential for understanding and predicting climate change — past, present, and future. These physics-based simulations are… more
    05/08/2025 | Security

    LLM-based Intelligent Literature Review Assistant

    Develop a semi-automated assistant for structured literature reviews, combining LLMs, citation graph search, and spreadsheet-based curation. This project builds on an existing prototype with basic PDF parsing, citation crawling,… more
    05/06/2025 | Security

    Elastic Stack Integration for Cyber Security Simulation Logging

    Adapt the existing CIDDS simulation environment so that system and network logs are forwarded directly into the Elastic Stack. Evaluate logging tools (e.g., Winlogbeat, Filebeat, Auditbeat) and configure them for simulated… more
    05/06/2025 | Security

    Automating Attack Simulations with MITRE ATT&CK

    Extend an existing simulation environment to execute reproducible cyber-attack scenarios using the MITRE ATT&CK framework and procedures for example from Aomic Red Team. The focus is on automation of attack step execution and… more
    05/06/2025 | Security

    XAI Benchmarking for Cyber Security

    Investigate how to derive explanation-relevant features from simulated SIEM logs by analyzing known attack scenarios. Use publicly available annotated attack logs (e.g., from securitydatasets.com) to identify explanation-relevant… more
    05/06/2025 | Security

    Domain-Specific Representation-Learning for Cyber Security

    Develop and evaluate representation learning methods on structured security log data. The goal is to capture domain-specific patterns from benign and attack behavior that can later support anomaly detection and explainability in… more
    04/30/2025 | Security

    Role-Based User Behavior Simulation in Enterprise IT Environments

    Develop lightweight simulation agents that mimic realistic user behavior (e.g., office staff, developers, admins) in a controlled lab setup. Agents should execute atomic tasks such as browsing, file access, or command usage, with… more
    02/17/2025 | Natural Language Processing

    Exploring and Evaluating Various Domain Adaptation Techniques

    Domain adaptation involves modifying a model, originally trained on general data, to perform effectively in more specialized fields such as medicine, politics, law or instruction following. more
    01/30/2025 | Security

    Agent-based Machine Learning for Offensive and Defensive Cyber Security

    Automatisierte Agenten bieten ein enormes Potenzial für offensive und defensive Cybersecurity. Von der Informationsbeschaffung über Angriffe bis hin zur Erkennung und Abwehr von Angriffen können sie eine Vielzahl komplexer… more
    01/30/2025 | Security

    Knowledge-based Machine Learning for Proactive Cyber Threat Modeling and Detection Using Ontologies and Knowledge Graphs

    Die Erkennung und Modellierung von Cyberangriffspfaden erfordert eine automatisierte Analyse von Bedrohungen. Frameworks wie MITRE ATT&CK oder D3FEND bieten umfangreiche Wissensbasen, werden jedoch oft isoliert genutzt. more
    01/22/2025 | Physics & Deep Learning, Ecosystems

    Spherical Embeddings or Spherical Fourier Neural Operators

    Spherical Harmonics by Inigo.quilez, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spherical_Harmonics.png)
    Although our planet is a sphere and therefor all weather and climate processes operate on sphere, Deep Learning Weather Models very commonly operate on different rectangular projections of the sphere. This introduces increasingly… more