Zeynep G. Saribatur

Assistant Prof. Dr. techn. / MSc

Zeynep G. Saribatur

Since May 2026, I am an Assistant Professor of Reasonable Artificial Intelligence at TU Wien. I am also a Hertha Firnberg Fellow (funded by Austrian Science Fund (FWF)) at TU Wien, since June 2022. Before that, I was a post-doctoral researcher at the Databases and Artificial Intelligence (DBAI) and the Knowledge-Based Systems (KBS) groups. I completed my PhD studies in December 2019 as part of the Doctoral College Logical Methods in Computer Science at TU Wien under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Eiter.

My research combines formal logical methods with computational techniques and cognitive perspectives to advance symbolic reasoning systems with abstraction and generalization abilities, while improving human-understandability of their reasoning. I develop theories and methods for abstraction within Answer Set Programming, one of the core formalisms in Symbolic AI, and related logic-based frameworks, to simplify complex reasoning representations while preserving essential details for decision-making. At the same time, I investigate how abstraction affects human comprehension of explanations, thereby connecting logical reasoning with empirical perspectives. My work advances theoretical foundations of symbolic AI while shaping future directions for transparent and cognitively aligned reasoning systems.

News

  • I have been selected for the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Early Career Spotlight!
  • Two papers accepted at IJCAI-ECAI 2026! In the paper titled “Abstracting the Indistinguishable in ASP” (Main Track), we investigate computational aspects of checking and existence of abstractions, while also giving insights on the difference of interchangeability and indistinguishability. In the paper titled “An XAI View on Explainable ASP: Methods, Systems, and Perspectives” (Survey Track), we overview types of ASP explanations in connection with user questions for explanation, describe their coverage by current theory and tools and identify research directions for future work by pinpointing the gaps.
  • Two papers accepted at KR 2026! In the paper titled “Beyond Uniform: To Boldly Abstract What Has Not Been Abstracted Before”, we investigate relativized uniform abstractions in ASP to relax conditions under which an abstraction over irrelevancy is possible. In the short paper titled “Simple Guess-and-Check Programs: Strong and Uniform Equivalence Meet Again”, we define a subclass of normal logic programs where uniform and strong equivalence coincide.
  • Our paper “The Dual Role of Abstracting over the Irrelevant in Symbolic Explanations: Cognitive Effort vs. Understanding” is accepted to CogSci 2026 as a talk presentation! In this paper, we empirically showed how the theory on abstracting over irrelevancy in ASP enhances human understandability of explanations. I’m very proud of this interdisciplinary collaboration.
  • We are organizing a workshop on Theory and Methods for Abstraction (THEMA) as part of KR 2026! The workshop aims to bring together researchers from KR and related communities working on their perspective of abstraction in their fields, with the goal of exchanging theories and methods.

Education

PhD. in Computer Science, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria (2019)
MSc. in Computer Science and Engineering, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey (2014)
BSc. in Mathematics, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey (2012)

Professional Activities

Member of the program committee of:

Co-chair of the Rule Challenge Track of the 10th International Joint Conference on Rules and Reasoning (Rule Challenge@RuleML+RR 2026) as part of Declarative AI 2026.

Co-organizer of the workshop on Theory and Methods for Abstraction (THEMA 2026) co-located with KR 2026.

Co-organizer of the Dagstuhl Seminar “Conveying the Essence via Abstraction: From Art to AI” taken place on Feb 22 - Feb 27, 2026.

Sponsorship co-chair of the 4th European Summer School on Artificial Intelligence (ESSAI 2026).

Steering Committee Member and Chair for Sponsorship Committee of KR Inc. (2024-2027).

Sponsorship co-chair of KR 2024 and KR 2021.

Co-organizer of the 16th and the 17th Workshops on Answer Set Programming and Other Computing Paradigms (ASPOCP 2023 & ASPOCP 2024).

Co-organizer of the workshop on Recent Advances in Collaborative and Argumentative Decision-Making.

Local Arrangements Committee Member of IJCAI-ECAI 2022.

Co-organizer of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Workshops on Trends and Applications of Answer Set Programming (TAASP 2019, TAASP 2020 & TAASP 2022).

Award committee member of VCLA International Student Awards (2020, 2021, 2023, 2025).

Co-chair of the student session at the 27th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information (ESSLLI 2015).

Career Breaks

Maternity leaves during July 2021 - May 2022 and May 2024 - March 2025.

Projects

1/2026 - 12/2029: Principle Investigator, Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) ICT25-044, Learning Abstractions for Generalized Reasoning in AI (LAGER) (with Thomas Eiter and Nysret Musliu as coPI’s), € 799,932
6/2022 - 12/2026: Principle Investigator, Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Hertha Firnberg Grant T1315, Abstraction for Understandability of Reasoning in AI, € 246,120

Software

I have developed the prototype tools (ASPARO, DASPAR, mDASPAR) for the abstraction and refinement methodology on ASP programs.

Publications

Can be found at the reposiTUm or dblp.

Miscellaneous

Runner-up for best paper award and for best student paper award at KR 2018.

Finalist for best Cognitive Robotics paper award at ICRA 2015.

Member of the AngryHEX team (participant at Angry Birds AI competition): Semi-finalist of the 6th competition at IJCAI 2017, quarter-finalist of the 8th competition at IJCAI 2019 and the 5th competition at IJCAI 2016.

Contact