Keynote 1
Claudia Plant
University of Vienna, Austria · General Chair of ICDM 2026
Title: Clustering: My Journey in Data Mining Research
Abstract: How to find a natural grouping of a real data set with an unknown number of clusters which may be contaminated with noise? This question marked the beginning of my exciting journey into data mining research, and it continues to occupy me to this day. Starting with the basic K-Means algorithm, this talk will introduce ideas for clustering high-dimensional, complex, and noisy data. I will also illustrate my personal journey, from my first ICDM paper in 2004 to my current position as a professor, General Co-Chair of ICDM and leader of an awesome research group working on clustering and representation learning. I will also offer advice to young researchers on how to find their path, stay on it, enjoy the journey and ultimately turn their passion for data mining research into a profession.
Biography: Claudia Plant is full professor for Computer Science at the University of Vienna, Austria, where she heads the Research Group Data Mining and Machine Learning and the Research Network Data Science @ UniVie. She also serves as General Chair of ICDM 2026. Her research focuses on discovering patterns and knowledge in large and complex datasets, with particular interests in clustering, representation learning, information-theoretic data mining, deep learning and methods for analyzing graphs, time series, and heterogeneous data. Her work includes applications in biomedicine, neuroscience, and environmental science. Before joining the University of Vienna in 2016, she held research positions at the Technical University of Munich, Florida State University, and Helmholtz Zentrum München.
