CV

Manon Kempermann

Education

  • BSc Data Science and AI, Saarland University, Germany (2023 - 2026)

    • Average grade: 1.3 (~3.8 GPA)

    • Currently writing thesis at Max Planck Institute for Software Systems under supervision of Goran Radanović and Adish Singla on redteaming for misalignment in AI agents

    • Relevant Class work:

      • Mechanistic Interpretability: An Interpretability View of The Impact of Fine-Tuning on the Refusal Mechanism in Large Language Models (Report available)
      • Research Seminar: Fine Tuning: From Benign to Malign – How Different Fine Tuning Methods Degrade Safety Guardrails in LLMs During Benign Finetuning (Report available)
      • Programming:
        • Java: 2048 Game, Route Planner, Compiler translating subset of C into MIPS
        • C: Image Edge Detector, Page Rank
        • MIPS Assembly: Rock, Paper, Scissors with Random Number Generator

  • Scottish Qualification Certificate, Kilgraston School, Scotland, UK (2021 - 2022)

    • Dresden Trust Scholar
    • Highers in Mathematics (A), Chemistry (A), Human Biology (A), Business Management (A), Latin (A), German (A)

  • Young Student, Technical University Dresden, Germany (2019 - 2021)

    • Psychology
    • Civil Engineering

Scholarships and Honors

  • Young Researcher and Abbe–Grantee at the 12th Heidelberg Laureate Forum (2025)
  • Cusanuswerk Scholarship (2025 - ongoing)
  • Member of Honours Program of the Faculty for Computer Science and Mathematics (top 5% students), Saarland University (2023 - ongoing)
  • Dresden Trust Scholarship (2021 - 2022)

Work Experience

  • Research Assistant at the Interdisciplinary Institute for Societal Computing (I2SC) in Saarbrücken, Germany, working on context-dependent user risk evaluations of LLMs (05/2024 - ongoing)
  • Tutor Core Lecture “Elements of Data Science and AI” at Saarland University (10/2024 - 03/2025)

Publications

  • Manon Kempermann, Sai Suresh Macharla Vasu, Mahalakshmi Raveenthiran, Theo Farrell, Ingmar Weber: Challenges of Evaluating LLM Safety for User Welfare, IASEAI 2026, to appear.
  • Jianlong Zhu, Manon Lilott Kempermann, Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Alexander Hartland, Rosa M. Navarrete, Giuseppe Carteny, Daniela Braun, Ingmar Weber: Learn, Explore and Reflect by Chatting: Understanding the Value of an LLM-Based Voting Advice Application Chatbot, ACM Conversational User Interfaces (CUI), Paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3719160.3736611

Extracurricular Education and Activities in AI/AI Safety

  • Founder and lead organiser of AI Safety Saarland (06/2025 – ongoing)
    • Leading Organiser Team of 10 people
    • organising mentored research program for 35 students in 17 projects
    • running six weekly reading groups for students in research program
    • organising public events such as kick-off with talk by Jan Kirchner from Anthropic with 300+ attendees
    • secured funding for group from Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative through Pathfinder Fellowship
  • Pathfinder Mentor – mentoring three AI safety group leaders within the Pathfinder Fellowship run by Kairos (12/2025 – ongoing)
  • Pathfinder Fellow – Fellowship run by Kairos providing mentorship, funding and training for AI safety group organisers (08/2025 – 12/2025)
  • AGI Strategy-Course by BlueDot Impact (10/2025 - 11/2025)
  • AI Safety, Ethics and Society Course by the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) (02/2025 - 05/2025)
  • Global Challenges Project Workshop in Oxford (03/2025)
  • ML4Good - 10-day intense AI safety upskilling bootcamp (03/2025)
  • Spring School Clinicum Digitale for digital health at EKFZ Dresden, Germany (03/2024)

Volunteering

  • Giving talks and workshops on AI and AI safety to general public and at schools (04/2025 - ongoing)

    • “AI and Democracy” – YouTalk at youmocracy e.V. (12/2025)
    • “What’s up with AI – Reality, Vision, Responsibility” – Talk at Open Campus Day Saarland University (05/2025)
    • “Let’s talk about AI” – Talk at Landesgymnasium für Hochbegabtenförderung St. Afra zu Meißen (05/2025)
    • “AI for non-Nerds” – Workshop at St. Benno Gymnasium Dresden (05/2025)
    • “Coded Creation – God and AI” – Workshop in Youth Church Eli.ja Saarbrücken (05/2025)

  • Accompanying seminars for weltwärts-volunteers as an alumna and teamer at the Internationaler Bund, Germany (01/2024 - ongoing)

  • “weltwärts”-Voluntary service at Pakashka Sacha, Tena, Ecuador (10/2022 - 08/2023)

    Pakashka Sacha is an organisation aiming to improve education of marginalised young indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest

  • Voluntary work at Musaik e.V. Dresden (11/2019 – 07/2022), giving violin lessons

Hobbies

Acitve in yoga, contemporary dance, running and climbing. Playing the violin.