CLS2026 Retreat held in Aldingen

Networking event hosted by MPI for Intelligent Systems

cls 27 July 2026 News
Thumb ticker md cls group picture reduced

Most CLS Researchers are frequent travellers on the roughly 210 km route between Stuttgart and Zurich. For this year's CLS Retreat, we chose a location at almost exactly the midway point: this took us to the charming Swabian village of Aldingen. A total of 39 people, including CLS doctoral fellows and associate fellows as well as faculty members, travelled from Zurich, Stuttgart and Tübingen to join the event, held during 22 - 24 June 2026.

A major feature of this year's CLS retreat was the weather - very hot! - meaning outdoor program points had to be rethought. Luckily, our retreat venue - Hotel Aurelia - provided a well-cooled seminar room for the scientific program, in which lightning talks and posters from CLS doctoral researchers were complemented by faculty research talks from:

  • Janneke Schwaner, Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart where she leads the ‘Neuromechanics of Movement’ group, and a senior researcher at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
  • Robert Katzschmann, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering (D-MAVT) at ETH Zurich and head of the Soft Robotics Lab.
  • Fanny Yang, Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department (D-INFK) at ETH Zurich, and head of the Statistical Machine Learning Group.
  • Zhijing Jin, research scientist at the Max Planck Institute with Bernhard Schölkopf, and an incoming Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto.
  • Michael Mühlebach, head of the independent research group on Learning and Dynamical Systems at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen.

The program further featured a panel discussion with faculty members Bernhard Schölkopf, Michael Mühlebach, Florian Dörfler and Robert Katzschmann, moderated by doctoral fellow Vivian Nastl. The discussion topic was suggested by the doctoral students: "Future of ML and LLMs: how research methods are changing, how to use these tools responsibly in research, and which human skills stay relevant" and generated diverse and thought-provoking perspectives.

Max Planck Research Group Leader Janneke Schwaner led a highly appreciated interactive session on "The PhD Journey". Following on, student representatives Anna Kerekes and Adamya Singh Dhakar led a session improving the student-to-student Wiki, ensuring practical knowledge is shared across the network; in addition, participants could test their creativity with some fun artistic team challenges.

The event was hosted this year by the MPI for Intelligent Systems. CLS Coordinator Sarah Danes was responsible for the program and the logistical organization, with essential contributions from the SCO/Events Team at the MPI for Intelligent Systems, as well as Ulrika Pettersson and Trinh Ngo (both ETH AI Center) and the student representative team of Taiki Nakano, Anna Kerekes, Adamya Singh Dhaker and Jana Egli.

The retreat delivered many opportunities to connect, exchange on research activities, make new contacts and strengthen the CLS community. Thank you to everyone who contributed—your passion, curiosity, and collaboration make CLS what it is.

Image credit: Ulrika Pettersson, ETH AI Center.