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I am Emmy Noether junior group leader at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP, LMU Munich). Me and my group are associated with the Munich Center for Machine Learning (MCML), and I am a fellow of the Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Reliable AI (relAI). I am further a member of the Young Center of the LMU Center for Advanced Studies (CAS^LMU), where I co-lead a research focus on Bayesian reasoning in science. I am also associate editor of the European Journal for Philosophy of Science.

In September 2027 I will take up the position of assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method of the London School of Economics (LSE).

My work is about applying the mathematical field of machine learning theory to philosophical questions around machine learning and artificial intelligence. My Emmy Noether project From Bias to Knowledge: The Epistemology of Machine Learning is concerned with the fundamental notion of inductive bias—the assumptions that allow a learning algorithm to learn. This project builds on my earlier German Science Foundation-funded project on the The Epistemology of Statistical Learning Theory.

For my work I received the Wolfgang Stegmüller Award from the Germany Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP), the Karl-Heinz Hoffmann Prize from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (BadW), and the Herbert A. Simon Award from the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP).

For more on philosophy of machine learning at the MCMP, including our reading group and our teaching, see here.

I think climate change is a thing, and I don't see why we all couldn't try to make an effort. So I avoid flying, and aim to only travel to places I can reach by train.

Contact me at tom.sterkenburglmu.de.

I'm currently receiving so many requests for supervision that I'm having a hard time replying individually. The short of it is: I can't do external supervision of bachelor's or master's theses; if I have open PhD positions, I will announce them here; if you want to do a PhD *in philosophy* with me at the LSE, you can apply to the philosophy department's graduate research program; if you're interested in the philosophy of machine learning and want to get a glimpse of the field, you can write me to join our hybrid reading group.

Current affairs

Oct 2026. I give an invited talk at ICGI 2026.

Oct 2026. In the 2026/27 winter semester I organize, together with Timo Freiesleben and Ignacio Ojea Quintana, a new round of the MCMP reading group on philosophy of machine learning.

Oct 2026. We organize PhilML'26.

Sep 2026. I return as guest researcher at the Machine Learning group of the CWI.

Aug 2026. I participate in the Dagstuhl seminar AI x Philosophy: Bridging Minds and Machines .

Aug 2026. A first public version is available of my paper with Daniel Herrmann and Jan-Willem Romeijn on benign interpolation and Occam's razor.

Formerly current affairs...

Previously

In my DFG-funded Eigene Stelle project The Epistemology of Statistical Learning Theory (2020-2023), I explored epistemological aspects of statistical learning theory, the standard theoretical framework for machine learning methods. I also proved new results in the setting of computable PAC learning.

As a postdoctoral fellow at the MCMP (2017-2020), I investigated the meta-inductive justification of induction based on the machine learning theory of online prediction. I further worked on a Bayesian confirmation theory that can deal with newly formulated hypotheses, that also drew from online prediction.

In my PhD project (2013-2018, cum laude), at the CWI (supervisor: Peter Grünwald) and the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen (supervisor: Jan-Willem Romeijn), I investigated the theory of universal prediction stemming from algorithmic information theory (Kolmogorov complexity).

I hold a MSc in Logic (Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, University of Amsterdam, cum laude), a MSc in History and Philosophy of Science (Descartes Centre, Utrecht University, cum laude), and a BSc in Artificial Intelligence (VU University Amsterdam, cum laude). I have never managed to obtain my driver's license, but I hope to attain Deutsche Bahn Statuslevel Gold Platin soon.