Daria Stepanova

Daria Stepanova is a lead research scientist at Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence. Her research focuses on integrating symbolic knowledge with machine learning to develop trustworthy and explainable AI systems. She works across two main areas:

  • Knowledge Graphs: Developing methods for the completion, refinement, and curation of knowledge graphs to uncover latent symbolic structures.
  • Enhancing AI Transparency: Investigating how structured knowledge can improve machine learning pipelines, enhancing model transparency, reasoning capabilities, and trustworthiness.

2025

 
Beyond Manual Labels: Unsupervised Graph-Based Explanations for Error Analysis in Image Classifiers
Youmna Ismaeil, Jan-Hendrik Metzen, Tran Trung Kien, Hendrik Bloeckeel, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) to appear, 2025.

2024

 
Neuro-symbolic AI and the Semantic Web
Pascal Hitzler, Monireh Ebrahimi, Md. Kamruzzaman Sarker, Daria Stepanova
In Journal on Semantic Web (SWJ) 15(4), p. 1261-1263, 2024.
 
Adaptive large-neighbourhood search for optimisation in answer-set programming.
Thomas Eiter, Tobias Geibinger, Nelson Higuera Ruiz, Nysret Musliu, Johannes Oetsch, Dave Pfliegler, Daria Stepanova
In Journal on Artificial Intelligence (AIJ) 337: 104230, p. 2024.

2023

 
FeaBI: A Feature Selection-Based Framework for Interpreting KG Embeddings
Youmna Ismaeil, Daria Stepanova, Trung-Kien Tran, Hendrik Blockeel
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2023), to appear, 2023.
 
Look beyond the Surface: A Demo for Explaining Knowledge Graph Embeddings and Entity Similarity
Huu Tan Mai, Youmna Ismaeil, Trung-Kien Tran, Hendrik Bloeckeel, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2023), to appear, 2023.
 
Combining Inductive and Deductive Reasoning for Query Answering over Incomplete Knowledge Graphs
Medina Andresel, Trung-Kien Tran, Csaba Domokos, Pasquale Minervini, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International Conference of Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2023), to appear, 2023.
 
Rule-based Knowledge Graph Completion with Canonical Models
Simon Ott, Patrick Betz, Daria Stepanova, Mohamed H. Gad-Elrab, Christian Meilicke, Heiner Stuckenschmidt
In Proceedings of International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2023), to appear, 2023.
 
Semantically Guided Scene Generation via Contextual Reasoning and Algebraic Measures
Loris Bozzato, Thomas Eiter, Rafael Kiesel, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of Workshop on Answer Set Programming and Other Computing Paradigms (ASPOCP), to appear, 2023.

2022

 
Enhancing Knowledge Bases with Quantity Facts
Vinh Thinh Ho, Daria Stepanova, Dragan Milchevski, Jannik Strötgen, Gerhard Weikum
In Proceedings of International WWW Conference (WWW 2022), p. 893-901, 2022.
 
Towards Interpreting Neural Networks Using Commonsense Knowledge Graphs
Youmna Ismaeil, Daria Stepanova, Trung-Kien Tran, Csaba Domokos, Piyapat Saranrittichai, Hendrik Bloeckeel
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2022). p. 74-90, 2022.
 
Large-Neighbourhood Search for Optimisation in Answer-Set Solving
Thomas Eiter, Tobias Geibinger, Nelson Higuera Ruiz, Nysret Musliu, Johannes Oetsch, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International AAAI Conference (AAAI 2022), p. 5616-5625, 2022.
 
ALASPO: An Adaptive Large-Neighbourhood ASP Optimiser
Thomas Eiter, Tobias Geibinger, Nelson Higuera Ruiz, Nysret Musliu, Johannes Oetsch, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International Conference on Knowledge Representation (KR 2022), 2022.

2021

 
Improving Knowledge Graph Embeddings with Ontological Reasoning
Nitisha Jain, Tran Kien Trung, Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2021), p. 410-426, 2021. [paper]
 
Answer-Set Programming for Lexicographical Makespan Optimisation in Parallel Machine Scheduling
Thomas Eiter, Tobias Geibinger, Nysret Musliu, Johannes Oetsch, Peter Skocovsky, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2021), p. 280-290, 2021. [paper]
 
A Neural-symbolic Approach for Ontology-mediated Query Answering
Medina Andresel, Csaba Domokos, Daria Stepanova, Trung-Kien Tran
On arxiv 2106.14052. [paper]
 
Towards Leveraging Commonsense Knowledge for Autonomous Driving
Sreyasi Nag Chowdhury, Ruwan Wickramarachchi, Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova, Cory Henson
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2021), posters and demos, to appear, 2021.

2020

 
ExCut: Explainable Embedding-Based Clustering over Knowledge Graphs
Mohamed H. Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova, Trung-Kien Tran, Heike Adel
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2020) p. 218-237, 2020. [paper]
 
Towards Utilizing Knowledge Graph Embedding Models for Conceptual Clustering
Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Thinh Vinh Ho, Evgeny Levinkov, Tran Kien Trung, Daria Stepanova
In Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2020 posters), p. 281-286, 2020. [paper]
 
Differentiable Learning of Numerical Rules from Knowledge Graphs
Po-Wei Wang, Daria Stepanova, Csaba Domokos, Zico Kolter
In Proceedings of International Conference on Learning Representations, 2020. [paper]
 
Fast Computation of Explanations for Inconsistency in Large-Scale Knowledge Graphs
Tran Kien Trung, Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova, Evgeny Kharlamov, Jannik Strötgen
In Proceedings of International WWW Conference, p. 2613-2619, 2020.

2019

 
Hybrid ASP-based Approach to Pattern Mining
Sergey Paramonov, Daria Stepanova and Pauli Miettinen
In Journal on Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, p. 505-535, 2019. [paper]
 
Tracy: Tracing Facts over Knowledge Graphs and Text (Demo)
Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova, Jacopo Urbani and Gerhard Weikum.
In Proc. 2019 World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2019), p. 3516-3520, 2019. [paper]
 
ExFaKT: A Framework for Explaining Facts over Knowledge Graphs and Text
Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova, Jacopo Urbani and Gerhard Weikum.
In Proc. ACM International Conf. on Web Search and Data Mining,p. 87-95, 2019. [paper]
 
Reasoning Web. Explainable Artificial Intelligence - 15th International Summer School 2019, Bolzano, Italy, September 20-24, 2019, Tutorial Lectures.
Markus Krötzsch and Daria Stepanova
In Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2019. [proceedings|website]
 
Towards Semantic Integration of Bosch Manufacturing Data.
Anees Mehdi, Evgeny Kharlamov, Daria Stepanova, Felix Loesch and Irlan Grangel Gonzalez
In ISWC Satellites, p. 303-304, 2019. [paper]
 
Towards the Bosch Materials Science Knowledge Base.
Jannik Strötgen, Trung-Kien Tran, Annemarie Friedrich, Dragan Milchevski, Federico Tomazic, Anika Marusczyk, Heike Adel, Daria Stepanova, Felix Hildebrand and Evgeny Kharlamov
In ISWC Satellites, p. 323-324, 2019. [paper]

2018

 
Rule Induction and Reasoning from Knowledge Graphs
Daria Stepanova, Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Vinh Thinh Ho.
In Proc. Reasoning Web Summer School (RW), p. 142-172, 2018. [paper|slides]
 
Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs Guided by Embeding Models
Vinh Thinh Ho, Daria Stepanova, Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Evgeny Kharlamov, Gerhard Weikum.
In Proc. International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2018), p. 72-90, 2018. [paper|slides|poster]
 
Completeness-aware Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs.
Thomas Pellissier Tanon, Daria Stepanova, Simon Razniewski, Paramita Mirza, Gerhard Weikum.
In Proc. International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2018), p. 5339-5343, 2018. [paper]
 
Event-enhanced Knowledge Graph Completion
Martin Ringsquandl, Evgeny Kharlamov, Daria Stepanova, Marcel Hildebrandt, Steffen Lamparter, Raffaello Lepratti, Ian Horrocks, and Peer Kröger.
In Proc. Extended Semantic Web Conference (ESWC 2018), p. 541-559, 2018. [paper]

2017

 
Completeness-aware Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs.
Thomas Pellissier Tanon, Daria Stepanova, Simon Razniewski, Paramita Mirza, Gerhard Weikum.
In Proc. 16th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2017), p. 507-525, 2017. [paper] (nominated for best student paper award)
 
On Event-Driven Leaning of Knowledge in Smart Factories: The Case of Siemens.
Martin Ringsquandl, Steffen Lamparter, Evgeny Kharlamov, Raffaello Lepratti, Daria Stepanova, Peer Kröger, and Ian Horrocks.
In Proc. IEEE Big Data Conference 2017, 1676-1681, 2017. [paper]
 
Combining Nonmonotonic Reasoning and Rule Learning for Link Prediction in Knowledge Graphs.
Francesca A. Lisi and Daria Stepanova.
In Proc. 11th International Conference on Rules and Reasoning Systems (RR+Rule-ML 2017), to appear, 2017. [paper] (best poster award)
 
Hybrid Approach to Constraint-based Pattern Mining.
Sergey Paramonov, Daria Stepanova, Pauli Miettinen.
In Proc. 11th International Conference on Rules and Reasoning (RR+Rule-ML 2017), p. 199-214, 2017.
[paper]

2016

 
Towards Nonmonotonic Relational Learning from Knowledge Graphs.
Hai Dang Tran, Daria Stepanova, Mohamed Gad-elrab, Francesca A. Lisi, Gerhard Weikum.
In Post-proc. 26th Inductive Logic Programming Conference (ILP 2016), p. 94-107, 2016. [paper |short paper |slides]
 
Exception-enriched Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs.
Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova, Jacopo Urbani, Gerhard Weikum.
In Proc. 39th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI 2016), p. 211-217, 2016. [paper]
 
Exception-enriched Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs.
Mohamed Gad-Elrab, Daria Stepanova, Jacopo Urbani, Gerhard Weikum.
In Proc. 15th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2016), p. 234-251, 2016. [paper]
 
Computing Repairs for Inconsistent DL-programs over EL Ontologies.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
Journal of Artifitial Intelligence Research (JAIR), p. 463-515, 2016. [paper]
 
Data Repair of Inconsistent Nonmonotonic Description Logic Programs.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
Journal of Artifitial Intelligence (JAI), p. 7-53, 2016. [paper]
 
Angry-HEX: an Artificial Player for Angry Birds Based on Declarative Knowledge Bases.
Giovambattista Ianni, Francesco Calimeri, Stefano Germano, Andreas Humenberger, Christoph Redl, Daria Stepanova, Andrea Tucci, and Anton Wimmer.
Angry-HEX: an Artificial Player for Angry Birds Based on Declarative Knowledge Bases.
IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, p. 128-139, 2016. [paper]

2015

 
Inconsistencies in Hybrid Knowledge Bases.
Daria Stepanova.
PhD Thesis, Vienna University of Technology, March 2015. [thesis |slides ]

2014

 
Computing Repairs for Inconsistent DL-programs over EL Ontologies.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
In Proc. of Joint Extended Conference on Artificial Intelligence, JELIA, p. 426-441, 2014. [paper |slides ]
 
Towards Practical Deletion Repair of Inconsistent DL-programs.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
In ECAI, p. 285-290, 2014. [ paper | slides ]
 
Towards Practical Deletion Repair of Inconsistent DL-programs.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
In DL workshop, p. 169-180, 2014. [ paper]
 
Exploiting Support Sets for Answer Set Programs with External Evaluations.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Christoph Redl, Daria Stepanova.
In Proc. of 28th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI 2014, p. 1041-1048, 2014. [ paper | poster ]
 
Inconsistencies in Hybrid Knowledge Bases.
Daria Stepanova.
In Doctoral Consortium of KR 2014, 2014. [ paper | slides | poster ]

2013

 
Data Repair of Inconsistent DL-programs.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
In Proc. of 23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 2013. [ paper | slides | poster ]
 
Inconsistency Management for Description Logic Programs and Beyond.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
In Proc. of 7th Conference on Rules and Reasoning Systems, RR 2013, 2013.

2012

 
Semantic Independence in DL-Programs.
Thomas Eiter, Michael Fink, Daria Stepanova.
In Proc. of 6th Conference on Rules and Reasoning Systems, RR 2012, p. 58-74, 2012. [ paper | slides ]

2009

 
Knowledge Base for Economically Justified Decision Making.
Daria Stepanova, Simon E. Parkin, Aad van Moorsel.
In ICSOFT 2009, 2009.
exfact
ExCut: Explainable Embedding-based Clustering over KGs
[code]
exfact
ExFact: Explaining facts over Knowledge Graphs and Text
[project website | code]
exfact
RulES: Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs with Embedding Support
[code]
exfact
CARL: Completeness-aware Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs
[code]
exfact
Agent for playing AngryBirds game based on declarative programming
[code]
exfact
Exception-enriched Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs
[code]
exfact
Repair of Inconsistent Description Logic programs
[code]

Talks

Rule Induction and Reasoning in Knowledge Graphs

Open Data Science Conference, UK, November, 2019.

[slides]
Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs guided by Embedding Models

International Semantic Web Conference, Monterey, USA, October, 2018.

[slides | video]
Rule Induction and Reasoning in Knowledge Graphs

Reasoning Web Summer School, Luxembourg, September, 2018.

[slides]
Digital Knowledge: From Facts to Rules and Back

Talk within Max Planck Lecture Series, Saarbrücken, Germany, May, 2017.

[slides]
Towards Nonmonotonic Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs

Inductive Logic Programming Conference (ILP 2016), London, UK, September, 2016.

[slides]
Inconsistencies in Hybrid Knowledge Bases

PhD defense, Vienna, Austria, April, 2015.

[slides]
Towards Practical Deletion Repair of Inconsistent DL-programs

European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2014), Prague, August, 2014.

[slides]
Towards Practical Deletion Repair of Inconsistent DL-programs

Description Logic Workshop, Vienna, Austria, July, 2014.

[slides]
Data Repair of Inconsistent DL-Programs

Internation Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2013), Beijing, China, August, 2013.

[slides]
Semantic Independence in DL-programs

Rules and Reasoning Systems Conference (RR 2012), Vienna, Austria, September, 2012.

[slides]
A Knowledge Base for Justified Information Security Decision-making

International Conference on Software and Data Technologies (ICSOFT 2009), Sofia, Bulgary, July, 2009.

Organization of Scientific Events

Reviewing

PC membership
Journals
Conferences and Workshops

Recent Positions

Education

Cources

KRSW --- Knowledge Representation for the Semantic Web 2017-2018

A master level course on Knowledge Representation for the Semantic Web course at Max Planck Institute for Informatics in winter semester 2018-2019.
Check out the course website for more information.
ODSC 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 --- Rule Induction and Reasoning over Knowledge Grpahs

A 1,5-hour tutorial at Open Data Science Conference
RW 2018 --- Rule Induction and Reasoning over Knowledge Grpahs

A 3-hour tutorial at a Reasoning Web summer school [slides].
Check out the summer school website for more information.

PhD Students

Youmna Ismail (2021 - present)
Research area: Neuro-symbolic AI
Mohamed Gad-Elrab (2015 - 2021)
Research areas: Information Extraction and Information Retrieval, Data Mining, Natural Language Processing
Topic: Explainable Methods for Knowledge Graph Refinement and Exploration via Symbolic Reasoning
[thesis]

Master Students

Vinh Thinh Ho
Research areas: natural language processing, information retrieval and data mining
Topic: An Embedding-based Approach to Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs
[thesis]
Hai Dang Tran
Research areas: knowledge representation and reasoning, rule learning
Topic: Non-monotonic rule learning from knowledge graphs
[thesis]

Interns

At Bosch Center for AI
Michael Pritz
Research areas: neuro-symbolic AI, computer vision
Co-supervised with collaborators from TU Vienna and Nicole Finnie
Zihang Peng
Research areas: natural language processing, knowledge graphs
Topic: Learning Rules from Knowledge Graphs Guided by Embedding Models
Co-supervised with Prof. Alessandra Russo and Dr. Heike Adel-Vu
Hiba Arnaout
Co-supervised with Trung Kien Tran and Mohamed Gad-Elrab
Research areas: Ontological reasoning, language models
Vinh Thinh Ho
Co-supervised with Jannik Stroetgen and Dragan Michelski
Research areas: Knowledge Graphs, Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval
Topic: Knowledge Graph Population with Quantity Facts
Nitisha Jain
Co-supervised with Trung Kien Tran
Research areas: Ontological Reasoning, Knowledge Graph Embeddings
Topic: Improving Knowledge Graph Embeddings with Ontological Reasoning
Sreyasi Nag Chowdhury
Co-supervised with Cory Henson
Research areas: Commonsense knowledge graphs
Topic: Commonsense Knowledge Graph for Automated Driving
Medina Andresel
Co-supervised with Trung Kien Tran
Research areas: Ontology Mediated Query Answering, Knowledge Graph Embeddings
Topic: Neuro-symbolic Ontology-mediated Query Answering
Peter Skocovsky
Internship within the collaboration between Bosch Center for AI and TU Vienna
Research areas: Answer Set Programming
Topic: Answer Set Programming for Industrial Scheduling
At Max Planck Institute for Informatics
Thomas Pellissier Tanon
Research areas: Knowledge Graphs, Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval
Topic: Completeness-aware Rule Learning from Knowledge Graphs
Mahak Sarin
Topic: Automatic Testing of an AngyBirds Playing Agent
BCAI

Lead research scientist
Bosch center for AI
Robert Bosch Campus 1,
71272 Renningen, Germany

daria.stepanova@de.bosch.com

Google Scholar

Many thanks to David Jurgens for the site template/inspiration