Michael Blum

My research is driven by the rapid rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their influence on the information ecosystem. I believe that LLMs can empower humans in the creation and exploration of individualized information spaces, but this potential comes with risks around bias and transparency that require careful attention. Solutions should build upon established workflows, remain human-centered, and use Visual Analytics principles to support human decision-making. 

Some projects I am currently working on:

• Supporting humans in the workflow of taxonomy design
• Investigating how LLMs can support humans in data extraction
• Studying how Knowledge Organization theory can inform the design space of faceted navigation

In my past projects, I collaborated with scholars from the Digital Humanities to make annotations of TEI-XML based Digital Editions explorable (Tag-Xplore Project) . The Humanities and Libraries domain continues to be a central application area of my work.

I achieved a Master's degree from the University of Zürich in Computer Science with a focus in People-Oriented Computing. I joined the IVDA Group in 2024 as a Research Assistant and I am now pursuing my PhD with a scholarship from the Digital Society Initiative Excellence Program.

I am the Teaching Assistant for the Visual Analytics Seminar, where I guide students through conducting a scientific literature survey on a wide range of Visual-Analytics-related topics. During my studies, I served as a tutor for Informatics I (Introduction to Programming) and Informatics II (Algorithms and Data Structures).

I am continuously supervising student projects of all kinds (Bachelor Thesis, Master Thesis, Master's Project, Independent Studies). If you are motivated to work on a topic aligned with my research interests, feel free to send me a message.