Profile

Dr. Andreas Niekler

Dr. Andreas Niekler

Research Fellow

Computational Humanities
Paulinum
Augustusplatz 10, Room P 616
04109 Leipzig

Phone: +49 341 97 - 32239

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Website

Abstract

Andreas Niekler is a research associate at the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Leipzig. He develops computational methods in the area of semantic properties of language, as well as computational algorithmic methods for Computational Social Science and Computational Humanities. The focus is on machine learning and data management methods. Basic principles of empirical research play a major role in his work.


He is involved in the development of the interactive Leipzig Corpus Miner and is currently researching how semantic representations of text can be used for literary and scientometric questions. Furthermore, he conducts research on political science topics and contributes his experience in automatic content analysis to this field of research.


In teaching, he lectures on computational humanities and computational linguistics methods and gives courses in R and Python.

Professional career

  • since 08/2021
    Research Associate, Lecturer, Computational Humanities (Permanent)
  • 02/2020 - 02/2022
    Subproject Manager in the Elisa project (transfer research for the Federal Office of Consumer Protection) - implementation and research of document-based chat technologies for consumer advice in landlord-tenant law
  • 02/2020 - 02/2022
    Subproject Manager in the project SmartHEC (The smart heating cost check, company partner Co2Online, transfer research for the Federal Office for Consumer Protection) - implementation and research of Deep Learning for the optical-semantic recognition of document information in heating cost bills
  • 02/2020 - 02/2022
    Project manager project DocBot (transfer research with company partner 1000° Digital) - implementation and research of document-based chat technologies, speech generation, sequence to sequence deep learning and text mining.
  • 04/2018 - 07/2021
    Subproject Manager, Research Associate, Project: Data mining and Value Creation
  • 08/2017 - 12/2022
    Research Associate, DFG Project, Interactive Leipzig Corpus Miner - Development of an Integrated Research Environment for the Analysis of Structured and Unstructured Data in the Social Sciences
  • 08/2012 - 06/2016
    Research Associate, Project "Post-democracy and Neoliberalism" - Content Analysis of large text volumes on the use of neoliberal argumentation in the Federal Republic of Germany 1949-2011
  • 09/2010 - 07/2012
    Doctoral Scholarship of the European Union
  • 09/2007 - 08/2010
    Lab Engineer, University of Applied Sciences (HTWK)

Education

  • 09/2010 - 01/2016
    Doctorate in engineering (predicate "magna cum laude"), University of Leipzig, Germany. Topic: "Automated methods for topic analysis of news-oriented text sources"Reviewers:Christiane Fellbaum (Princeton University, USA)Gerhard Heyer (University of Leipzig)
  • 08/2001 - 08/2007
    Diploma in Engineering, Media Technology (1.3), University of Applied Sciences (HTWK)
  • 08/2003 - 06/2004
    BSc in Media Technology (with distinction), University of West Scotland, Paisley, Scotland
  • 08/2000 - 06/2001
    Abitur, Berufliches Schulzentrum 6, Leipzig, Germany

Panel Memberships

  • since 09/2022
    Representation of the Scientific Staff in the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (Leipzig University)

Research Interests: Natural Language Processing and Text Data in Computational Social Science / Digital Humanities, Conversational AI, Automated Content Analysis, Topic Analysis, Contextual and semantic dynamics in text data, Text Mining, Data Science, Information Extraction, Process and Activity Extraction from Text Data, Computational Linguistics, Transfer Research, Machine Learning, Internet Technologies, Information Systems, Visualization, Media Informatics, Communication Research.



Algorithms and methods: Bayesian models, maximum entropy models, topic models, support vector machines, deep learning, language models, association rule mining, minimum hashing, decision trees, conditional random fields, visualization.

  • Data Mining and Value Creation
    Scheuermann, Gerik
    Duration: 04/2018 – 03/2022
    Funded by: EU Europäischer Fonds für regionale Entwicklung (EFRE)
    Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Bild- und Signalverarbeitung; WINF/Informationssysteme in der Logistik; Innovationsmanagement/-ökonomie (IMW); Automatische Sprachverarbeitung
    show details
  • DocBot
    Niekler, Andreas
    Duration: 03/2020 – 02/2022
    Funded by: EU Europäischer Sozialfonds (ESF)
    Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Automatische Sprachverarbeitung
    show details
  • Postdemokratie und Neoliberalismus - Zur Nutzung neoliberaler Argumentationen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1949-2011
    Heyer, Gerhard
    Duration: 01/2012 – 08/2015
    Funded by: BMBF Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
    Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Institut für Informatik
    show details
  • Assistenten für die Dokument-basierte Konfiguration und das Monitoring chatbasierter Dialogsysteme
    Niekler, Andreas
    Duration: 03/2020 – 02/2022
    Funded by: EU Europäischer Sozialfonds (ESF)
    Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Institut für Informatik
    show details

more projects

  • Niekler, A.; Heyer, G.; Kahmann, C.
    Computing Semantic Change Using Context Volatility
    In: Martin, M.; Cuquet, M.; Folmer, E. (Eds.)
    SEMPDS-2016 Posters&Demos@SEMANTiCS 2016 and SuCCESS'16 Workshop. 2016.
    show details
  • Wiedemann, G.; Niekler, A.
    Hands-On: A Five Day Text Mining Course for Humanists and Social Scientists in R
    CEUR-WS.org Berlin. 2017.
    show details
  • Kahmann, C.; Niekler, A.; Wiedemann, G.
    Application of the interactive Leipzig Corpus Miner as a generic research platform for the use in the social sciences
    2021. pp. 39–44.
    show details
  • Schröder, C.; Bürgl, K.; Annanias, Y.; Niekler, A.; Müller, L.; Wiegreffe, D.; Bender, C.; Mengs, C.; Scheuermann, G.; Heyer, G.
    Supporting Land Reuse of Former Open Pit Mining Sites using Text Classification and Active Learning
    2021. pp. 4141–4152.
    DOI: 10.18653/v1/2021.acl-long.320
    show details
  • Maier, D.; Waldherr, A.; Miltner, A.; Wiedemann, G.; Niekler, A.; Kleinert, A.; Pfetsch, B.; Reber, U.; Häussler, T.; Adam, S.; Schmidt-Petri, H.
    Applying LDA topic modeling in communication research: Toward a valid and reliable methodology
    Communication Methods and Measures. 2018. 12 (2-3). pp. 93–118.
    DOI: 10.1080/19312458.2018.1430754
    show details

more publications

Within the scope of my previous activities, I have designed my own teaching content, supervised and organized seminars in the field of digital humanities and social sciences and computer science. I would like to emphasize my commitment and skills in methodological training. For several years, I have regularly taught applied introductory courses in text mining and machine learning in the social and communication sciences. I have already taught in the areas of basic computer science (algorithms and data structures, modeling and programming) and in applied topics (text mining, linguistic computer science) at the University of Leipzig. I am fluent in the necessary basics of mathematics, computer science and didactics, I regularly participate in the advanced trainings of the Hochschuldidaktisches Zentrum Sachsen and I can use these competences in teaching.

  • Computational Empirical Research

    • Lecture, Excercise
    • Master, Leipzig University (2023 - Now)

  • Methods and Applications in Digital Humanities (Lecture, Excercise)

    • Lecture, Excercise
    • Master, Leipzig University (2021 - Now)

  • Introduction to Digital Humanities

    • Excercise
    • Bachelor, Leipzig University (2021 - Now)

  • Introduction to Digital Philology

    • Excercise
    • Bachelor, Leipzig University (2021 - Now)

  • Statistical Learning

    • Excercise
    • Master, Leipzig University (2021 - Now)

  • Linguistic Informatics

    • Lecture, Excercise
    • Master, Leipzig University (2013 - 2022)

  • Text Mining (2013 - 2018)

    Lecture, Seminar, Exercise, Master, Leipzig University (2013 - 2018)

    Basic Module Text Mining, Gesis, Cologne (2010 - 2016)

    Text Mining Workshops for University of Leipzig, University of Mainz, University of Music and Drama Hannover

  • Modeling and programming - Exercise (2017 - 2018)

    • Excercise
    • Bachelor, Leipzig University (2017 - 2018)

  • Algorithms and data structures - Exercise (2017 - 2018)

    • Excercise
    • Bachelor, Leipzig University (2017 - 2018)

  • Media-neutral publishing

    • Lecture, Excercise
    • Master, Leipzig School of Media (2010 - 2016)

  • Responsible for the course: Crossmedia Management

    Responsible for the course: Crossmedia Management - Leipzig School of Media, supervision of modules carried out by the University of Leipzig, registration for the course