Current role
Managing Director, Bavarian AI Foundation Model Initiative
Geschäftsführer, Bayerische KI-Basismodell-Initiative
An initiative funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts (StMWK), developing open, multimodal AI foundation models for science, public administration, and society to strengthen technological sovereignty in the field of artificial intelligence. Steering Committee: Prof. Dr. Björn Ommer (LMU Munich), Prof. Dr. Wolfram Burgard (UTN) and Dr. Michael Klimke (Bavarian AI Agency).
48 leading researchers · 11 universities · €50M+ in GPUs
Research focus areas: Health · Robotics & Perception
Human-Centred AI · Digital Health · Adaptive Systems
Jan David
Smeddinck
Research & innovation lead. Fifteen years of experience in making adaptive and AI-based systems practically useful, trustworthy, and individually fitting — from the lab to real-world application.
Research and Innovation Aim
Bringing AI-based systems into real-world use in ways that are truly useful in practice, trustworthy in sensitive domains, and tailored to individual use cases as well as the individuals using them.
Human-AI Interaction
Usable AI grounded in real-world interactions, from embodied language acquisition to conversational interfaces and human-centred evaluation of AI systems.
Digital Health & Prevention
Technology-assisted behaviour change and patient pathways support in rehabilitation and prevention, co-designed with clinicians and patients.
Personalization & Adaptive Systems
Make digital technologies better fit individual interests, abilities and needs. Adaptive difficulty, just-in-time adaptive interventions, and LLM-driven personalisation, considering adaptivity as a first-class design material.
Current chapter: contributing my discipline-linking perspective to a Bavaria-wide effort, long in the making and carried by researchers across eleven universities: supporting the development of open, multimodal AI foundation models that bring AI into real applications, for science, public administration, and the people they serve.
100+ papers · 2,650+ citations
h-index 27 · CHI Best Paper · 3× Honourable Mention · as per Google Scholar, June 2026
Habilitation under review
LMU Munich, completion expected 2026 · Dr.-Ing. summa cum laude, U Bremen (2017)
PI & consortium lead
FFG Leitprojekt (€3.4M, lead/PI) · EU/IMI, BMBF, EPSRC, LBG
BSc → PhD
MSc programme director (Newcastle) · FHEA · 10+ doctoral researchers advised
Selected publications
— see full listing or click items for further details and linksSelected projects & roles
— click items for further detailsDigitally supported care pathways from prehabilitation to rehabilitation · 14 partners · €3.4M Consortium Lead · PI Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health & Prevention
Independent research institute of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Salzburg · ~40 associated staff Co-Director IDEA-FAST: IMI2 / EU
Digital endpoints for fatigue & sleep in neurodegenerative disease · 40+ partners · €41M+ consortium Work Package Lead Modular Open Research Platform (MORE): WISS2025 Salzburg
Open-source research infrastructure for situated digital health studies · https://more-platform.at/ PI · Open Source Adaptify: BMBF
Adaptive motion-based games for physiotherapy and rehabilitation · €1.7M consortium Co-I · Team Lead