Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Coordinator

Prof. Dr. Vera Schmitt

Prof. Dr. Vera Schmitt is Professor of Information Systems at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, where her research focuses on explainable and robust AI and its applications in socially relevant domains. She combines methods from Natural Language Processing and Explainable AI, with research spanning medical decision support, disinformation detection, deepfakes, and information manipulation.

She is the founder and head of the XplaiNLP research group and has secured approximately €6 million in third-party funding as Principal Investigator, leading several national and European research projects. Previously, she worked at TU Berlin’s Quality and Usability Lab and as a guest researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Her work has received multiple Best Paper Awards, and in 2025, Der Tagesspiegel named her among the “100 most important minds in Berlin science.”

Project Manager

Dr. Veronika Solopova

Dr. Veronika Solopova is a Senior Researcher at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and TU Berlin and co-lead of the XplaiNLP research group. Her research focuses on natural language processing and multimodal AI for social media analysis, with particular emphasis on disinformation, propaganda, harmful content, explainable AI, and human-centered content moderation.

She received her doctorate in Computer Science from Freie Universität Berlin with summa cum laude for her work on hybrid AI systems for automated content moderation and analysis. Her doctoral research received the German Public Broadcasters’ ARD/ZDF Award “Women + Media Technology” (Frauen + Medientechnologie).

Veronika is a Junior Fellow of the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik, GI) and has contributed to several national and European research projects on AI, disinformation, and fact-checking. Her work combines NLP, multimodal learning, and explainable AI to better understand and address complex information phenomena on the Web and social media.

Researcher

Ariana Sahitaj

Ariana Sahitaj holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Information Systems from the University of Trier and a Master’s degree with honours in Information Systems Management from the Technical University of Berlin. Since her undergraduate studies, she has gained research experience across multiple institutions, including the University of Trier, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and the Quality and Usability Lab (QUL) at the Technical University of Berlin.

Her background spans Natural Language Processing, Large Language Models, argument analysis, and disinformation detection. In 2025, she received the Women Informatics Thesis Award from the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik). In 2026, she was awarded the female upgreat scholarship by the Bechtle Foundation.