Education
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Ph.D. Computer Science
LMU Munich
since Apr. 2021
M.Sc. Computer Science
LMU Munich
Oct. 2019 - Apr. 2021
B.Sc. Media Informatics
LMU Munich
Oct. 2015 - Sep. 2019
Professional Experience
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Research Associate
LMU Munich
since Apr. 2021
Tutor - Computer Architecture and Operating Systems Lectures
LMU Munich
Apr. 2018 - Mar. 2021
Masters Thesis
BMW Group
Nov. 2019 - Sep. 2020
Bachelors Thesis
BMW Group
Jul. 2018 - Nov. 2018
Internship - Rapid Prototyping
BMW Group
Sep. 2017 - Dec. 2017
Project Experience
Show details
Munich Quantum Valley (assoc.)
LMU Munich
since Jul. 2023
Quantum Computing User Network (assoc.)
LMU Munich
Jan. 2023 - Dec. 2023
CAQAO - Classes for the Application of Quantum Algorithms and Optimization
LMU Munich
since Jan. 2022
Innovationszentrum Mobiles Internet
LMU Munich
Jan. 2022 - Dec. 2022
PlanQK
LMU Munich
Apr. 2021 - Dec. 2021
Teaching Experience
Thesis Supervision (11 master theses, 31 bachelor thesis)
LMU Munich
since Apr. 2021
Teaching Assistance Lecture Computer Architecture
LMU Munich
since Apr. 2021
Teaching Assistance Lecture Operating Systems
LMU Munich
Oct. 2021 - Mar. 2024
Teaching Assistance Lecture Intelligent Systems
LMU Munich
Oct. 2022 - Mar. 2024
Teaching Assistance Lecture Quantum Applications
LMU Munich
Apr. 2022 - Aug. 2023
Supervision Practical Course Quantum Computing Programming
LMU Munich
Apr. 2021 - Mar. 2025
Supervision Seminar Trends in Mobile and Distributed Systems
LMU Munich
Apr. 2021 - Mar. 2025
Community Services
Organizer and Workshop Chair @ Quantum Artificial Intelligence & Optimization (QAIO 2025)
since Mar. 2024
Program Committee @ IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering – Quantum Machine Learning Workshop (QCE 2024)
2024
Program Committee @ The 39th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2024)
2024
Session Chair @ IEEE International Conference on Quantum Software (QSW 2024)
2024
Reviewer @ IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2024)
2023
Reviewer @ Springer Nature – Computer Science
since Mar. 2024
Reviewer @ Forty-Second International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2025)
2024
Research Interests
Quantum Artificial Intelligence
Automated Circuit Design
Reinforcement Learning
Multi-Agent Systems
Skills
Languages:
🇩🇪
German
🇬🇧
English
🇪🇸
Spanish
Programming Languages:
Typescript
Python
C
C#
Java
C++
Assembler
DevOps:
Kubernetes
Docker
Proxmox
ArgoCD
Longhorn
Prometheus
Other:
LaTeX
Microsoft 365
Photoshop
Illustrator
Premiere
AfterEffects
Unity
FinalCut
UnrealEngine
Blender
Figma
Publications
2025
Michael Kölle, Tom Bintener, Maximilian Zorn, Gerhard Stenzel, Leo Sünkel, Thomas Gabor, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Evaluating Mutation Techniques in Genetic Algorithm-Based Quantum Circuit Synthesis”. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2025. DOI: 10.1145/3712256.3726402 To appear. [PDF]
Michael Kölle, Alexander Feist, Jonas Stein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Evaluating Parameter-Based Training Performance of Neural Networks and Variational Quantum Circuits”. Computational Science – ICCS 2025. To appear. [Preprint] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Karola Schneider, Sabrina Egger, Felix Topp, Thomy Phan, Philipp Altmann, Jonas Nüßlein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Architectural Influence on Variational Quantum Circuits in Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning: Evolutionary Strategies for Optimization”. , pp. 50-79, 2025. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-87327-0_12 [Preprint] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Jonas Maurer, Philipp Altmann, Leo Sünkel, Jonas Stein, Julian Hager, Sebastian Zielinski, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Quantum Transfer Learning: The Impact of Classical Preprocessing”. , pp. 368-403, 2025. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-87327-0_18 [Code]
Navid Roshani and Jonas Stein and Maximilian Zorn and Michael Kölle and Philipp Altmann and Claudia Linnhoff-Popien . “Sequential Hamiltonian Assembly: Enhancing the Training of Combinatorial Optimization Problems on Quantum Computers”. Agents and Artificial Intelligence, pp. 252-271, 2025. 2. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-87327-0_13 [Code]
Michael Kölle, Johannes Tochtermann, Julian Schönberger, Gerhard Stenzel, Philipp Altmann, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “PIMAEX: Multi-Agent Exploration Through Peer Incentivization”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 572-579, 2025. DOI: 10.5220/0013260000003890 [PDF]
Gerhard Stenzel, Kyrill Schmid, Michael Kölle, Philipp Altmann, Marian Lingsch-Rosenfeld, Maximilian Zorn, Tim Bücher, Thomas Gabor, Martin Wirsing, Lenz Belzner. “SEGym: Optimizing Large Language Model Assisted Software Engineering Agents with Reinforcement Learning”. Bridging the Gap Between AI and Reality, pp. 107-124, 2025. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-75434-0_8 [PDF] [Code]
Gerhard Stenzel, Sebastian Zielinski, Michael Kölle, Philipp Altmann, Jonas Nüßlein, Thomas Gabor. “Qandle: Accelerating State Vector Simulation Using Gate-Matrix Caching and Circuit Splitting”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: QAIO, pp. 715-723, 2025. DOI: 10.5220/0013343500003890 [PDF] [Code]
Tobias Rohe, Barbara Böhm, Michael Kölle, Jonas Stein, Robert Müller, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Coconut Palm Tree Counting on Drone Images with Deep Object Detection and Synthetic Training Data”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, pp. 662-669, 2025. DOI: 10.5220/0013172900003890 [PDF]
Tobias Rohe, Michael Kölle, Jan Matheis, Rüdiger Höpfl, Leo Sünkel, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Optimization of Link Configuration for Satellite Communication Using Reinforcement Learning”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART, pp. 704-713, 2025. DOI: 10.5220/0013313000003890 [PDF]
Tobias Rohe, Florian Burger, Michael Kölle, Sebastian Wölckert, Maximilian Zorn, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Investigating Parameter-Efficiency of Hybrid QuGANs Based on Geometric Properties of Generated Sea Route Graphs”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: QAIO, pp. 724-730, 2025. DOI: 10.5220/0013350200003890 [PDF]
Philipp Altmann, Katharina Winter, Michael Kölle, Maximilian Zorn, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “MEDIATE: Mutually Endorsed Distributed Incentive Acknowledgment Token Exchange”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 33-44, 2025. DOI: 10.5220/0013091900003890 [PDF] [Code]
Gerhard Stenzel, Michael Kölle, Tobias Rohe, Maximilian Mansky, Jonas Nüßlein, Thomas Gabor. “QMamba: Quantum Selective State Space Models for Text Generation”. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: QAIO, pp. 742-750, 2025. DOI: 10.5220/0013378300003890 [PDF]
Tobias Rohe and Simon Grätz and Michael Kölle and Sebastian Zielinski and Jonas Stein and Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “From Problem to Solution: A General Pipeline to Solve Optimisation Problems on Quantum Hardware”. Advances in Information and Communication, pp. 21-41, 2025. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-84460-7_2 [Preprint]
Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Stein, Maximilian Balthasar Mansky, Philipp Altmann, Michael Kölle, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Quality Diversity for Variational Quantum Circuit Optimization”. ICAPS '25: Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling 2025. 35. To appear.
Leo Sünkel, Philipp Altmann, Michael Kölle, Gerhard Stenzel, Thomas Gabor, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Quantum Circuit Construction and Optimization through Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithms”. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2025. To appear. [Preprint]
Gerhard Stenzel, Sarah Gerner, Michael Kölle, Maximilian Zorn, Thomas Gabor. “A General Genetic Algorithm Using Natural Language Evolutionary Operators”. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2025. To appear.
Tobias Rohe, Maximilian Balthasar Mansky, Michael Kölle, Jonas Stein, Leo Sünkel, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Accelerated VQE: Parameter Recycling for Similar Recurring Problem Instances”. Innovations for Community Services 2025. To appear. [Preprint]
2024
Philipp Altmann, Fabian Ritz, Maximilian Zorn, Michael Kölle, Thomy Phan, Thomas Gabor, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Discriminative reward co-training”. Neural Computing and Applications 2024. DOI: 10.1007/s00521-024-10512-8 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Daniel Seidl, Maximilian Zorn, Philipp Altmann, Jonas Stein, Thomas Gabor. “Optimizing Variational Quantum Circuits Using Metaheuristic Strategies in Reinforcement Learning”. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE), pp. 323-328, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/QCE60285.2024.10300 [Preprint] [Code]
Leo Sünkel, Philipp Altmann, Michael Kölle, Thomas Gabor. “On the Quantum Impact in Hybrid Classical-Quantum Transfer Learning”. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE), pp. 11-15, 2024. 02. DOI: 10.1109/QCE60285.2024.10244 [PDF]
Michael Kölle, Gerhard Stenzel, Jonas Stein, Sebastian Zielinski, Bjorn Ommer, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Quantum Denoising Diffusion Models”. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Software (QSW), pp. 88-98, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/QSW62656.2024.00023 [Preprint] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Timo Witter, Tobias Rohe, Gerhard Stenzel, Philipp Altmann, Thomas Gabor. “A Study on Optimization Techniques for Variational Quantum Circuits in Reinforcement Learning”. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Software (QSW), pp. 157-167, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/QSW62656.2024.00031 [Preprint] [Code]
Thomy Phan, Felix Sommer, Fabian Ritz, Philipp Altmann, Jonas Nüßlein, Michael Kölle, Lenz Belzner, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Emergent cooperation from mutual acknowledgment exchange in multi-agent reinforcement learning”. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, p. 34, 2024. 38(2). DOI: 10.1007/s10458-024-09666-5 [PDF] [Code]
Gerhard Stenzel, Maximilian Zorn, Philipp Altmann, Maximilian Balthasar Mansky, Michael Kölle, Thomas Gabor. “Self-Replicating Prompts for Large Language Models: Towards Artificial Culture”. , p. 110, 2024. ALIFE 2024: Proceedings of the 2024 Artificial Life Conference. DOI: 10.1162/isal_a_00813 [PDF] [Code]
Maximilian Zorn, Philipp Altmann, Gerhard Stenzel, Michael Kölle, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, Thomas Gabor. “Self-Adaptive Robustness of Applied Neural-Network-Soups”. , p. 74, 2024. ALIFE 2024: Proceedings of the 2024 Artificial Life Conference. DOI: 10.1162/isal_a_00811 [PDF]
Michael Kölle, Alessandro Giovagnoli, Jonas Stein, Maximilian Balthasar Mansky, Julian Hager, Tobias Rohe, Robert Müller, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Weight Re-mapping for Variational Quantum Algorithms”. Agents and Artificial Intelligence: 15th International Conference, ICAART 2023, Lisbon, Portugal, February 22–24, 2023, Revised Selected Papers, pp. 286-309, 2024. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-55326-4_14 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Yannick Erpelding, Fabian Ritz, Thomy Phan, Steffen Illium, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Aquarium: A Comprehensive Framework for Exploring Predator-Prey Dynamics Through Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Algorithms”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 59-70, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012382300003636 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Felix Topp, Thomy Phan, Philipp Altmann, Jonas Nüßlein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Multi-Agent Quantum Reinforcement Learning Using Evolutionary Optimization”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 71-82, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012382800003636 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Tom Schubert, Philipp Altmann, Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Stein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “A Reinforcement Learning Environment for Directed Quantum Circuit Synthesis”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 83-94, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012383200003636 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Mohamad Hgog, Fabian Ritz, Philipp Altmann, Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Stein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. Michael Kölle and Mohamad Hgog contributed equally to this work. “Quantum Advantage Actor-Critic for Reinforcement Learning”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 297-304, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012383900003636 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Afrae Ahouzi, Pascal Debus, Robert Müller, Daniëlle Schuman, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Towards Efficient Quantum Anomaly Detection: One-Class SVMs Using Variable Subsampling and Randomized Measurements”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART, pp. 324-335, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012381200003636 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Jonas Maurer, Philipp Altmann, Leo Sünkel, Jonas Stein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Disentangling Quantum and Classical Contributions in Hybrid Quantum Machine Learning Architectures”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, pp. 649-656, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012381600003636 [PDF] [Code]
Jonas Stein, Daniëlle Schuman, Magdalena Benkard, Thomas Holger, Wanja Sajko, Michael Kölle, Jonas Nüßlein, Leo Sünkel, Olivier Salomon, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Exploring Unsupervised Anomaly Detection with Quantum Boltzmann Machines in Fraud Detection”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART, pp. 177-185, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012326100003636 [PDF] [Code]
Philipp Altmann, Adelina Bärligea, Jonas Stein, Michael Kölle, Thomas Gabor, Thomy Phan, Claudia Linnhof-Popien. “Quantum Circuit Design: A Reinforcement Learning Challenge”. Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 2123-2125, 2024. ISBN: 9798400704864 [PDF] [Code]
Jonas Stein, Navid Roshani, Maximilian Zorn, Philipp Altmann, Michael Kölle, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Improving Parameter Training for VQEs by Sequential Hamiltonian Assembly”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART, pp. 99-109, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012312500003636 [PDF] [Code]
Robert Müller, Hasan Turalic, Thomy Phan, Michael Kölle, Jonas Nüßlein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “ClusterComm: Discrete Communication in Decentralized MARL Using Internal Representation Clustering”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 305-312, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012384300003636 [PDF]
Jonas Stein, Michael Poppel, Philip Adamczyk, Ramona Fabry, Zixin Wu, Michael Kölle, Jonas Nüßlein, Daniëlle Schuman, Philipp Altmann, Thomas Ehmer, Vijay Narasimhan, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Benchmarking Quantum Surrogate Models on Scarce and Noisy Data”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, pp. 352-359, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012348900003636 [PDF]
Leo Sünkel, Philipp Altmann, Michael Kölle, Thomas Gabor. “Quantum Federated Learning for Image Classification”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, pp. 936-942, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012421200003636 [PDF]
Jonas Stein, Tobias Rohe, Francesco Nappi, Julian Hager, David Bucher, Maximilian Zorn, Michael Kölle, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Introducing Reduced-Width QNNs, an AI-Inspired Ansatz Design Pattern”. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, pp. 1127-1134, 2024. DOI: 10.5220/0012449800003636 [PDF]
Leo Sünkel, Michael Kölle, Tobias Rohe, Thomas Gabor. “Towards Federated Learning on the Quantum Internet”. Computational Science – ICCS 2024: 24th International Conference, Malaga, Spain, July 2–4, 2024, Proceedings, Part VI, pp. 330-344, 2024. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-63778-0_24 [PDF]
Sebastian Zielinski, Jonas Nüßlein, Michael Kölle, Thomas Gabor, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, Sebastian Feld. “Solving Max-3SAT Using QUBO Approximation”. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE), pp. 681-691, 2024. 01. DOI: 10.1109/QCE60285.2024.00085 [Preprint]
Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Stein, Philipp Altmann, Michael Kölle, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, Thomas Gabor. “Cohesive Quantum Circuit Layer Construction with Reinforcement Learning”. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE), pp. 1721-1730, 2024. 01. DOI: 10.1109/QCE60285.2024.00201
2023
Michael Kölle, Alessandro Giovagnoli, Jonas Stein, Maximilian Mansky, Julian Hager, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Improving Convergence for Quantum Variational Classifiers Using Weight Re-Mapping”. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 2: ICAART, pp. 251-258, 2023. DOI: 10.5220/0011696300003393 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Steffen Illium, Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Nüßlein, Patrick Suchostawski, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Improving Primate Sounds Classification Using Binary Presorting for Deep Learning”. Deep Learning Theory and Applications - 4th International Conference, DeLTA 2023, Rome, Italy, July 13-14, 2023, Proceedings, pp. 19-34, 2023. 1875. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-39059-3\_2 [PDF]
Michael Kölle, Tim Matheis, Philipp Altmann, Kyrill Schmid. “Learning to Participate Through Trading of Reward Shares”. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 355-362, 2023. DOI: 10.5220/0011781600003393 [PDF] [Code]
Michael Kölle, Steffen Illium, Carsten Hahn, Lorenz Schauer, Johannes Hutter, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Compression of GPS Trajectories Using Autoencoders”. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, pp. 829-836, 2023. DOI: 10.5220/0011782100003393 [PDF]
Steffen Illium, Gretchen Griffin, Michael Kölle, Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Nüßlein, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “VoronoiPatches: Evaluating a New Data Augmentation Method”. Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 3: ICAART, pp. 350-357, 2023. DOI: 10.5220/0011670000003393 [PDF]
Thomy Phan, Fabian Ritz, Jonas Nüßlein, Michael Kölle, Thomas Gabor, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Attention-Based Recurrency for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning under State Uncertainty”. Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 2839-2841, 2023. DOI: 10.5555/3545946.3599096 [PDF] [Code]
Jonas Stein, Farbod Chamanian, Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Nüßlein, Sebastian Zielinski, Michael Kölle, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Evidence that PUBO outperforms QUBO when solving continuous optimization problems with the QAOA”. Proceedings of the Companion Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation, pp. 2254-2262, 2023. DOI: 10.1145/3583133.3596358 [PDF]
Thomy Phan, Fabian Ritz, Philipp Altmann, Maximilian Zorn, Jonas Nüßlein, Michael Kölle, Thomas Gabor, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Attention-based recurrence for multi-agent reinforcement learning under stochastic partial observability”. Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning 2023. DOI: 10.5555/3618408.3619565 [PDF] [Code]
2022
Andreas Sedlmeier, Michael Kölle, Robert Müller, Leo Baudrexel, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien. “Quantifying Multimodality in World Models”. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART, pp. 367-374, 2022. DOI: 10.5220/0010898500003116 [PDF]
Steffen Illium, Maximilian Zorn, Cristian Lenta, Michael Kölle, Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, Thomas Gabor. “Constructing Organism Networks from Collaborative Self-Replicators”. 2022 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), pp. 1268-1275, 2022. DOI: 10.1109/SSCI51031.2022.10022216 [PDF] [Code]