Lecture on AI and decision support for crisis management, including the presentation of the Female Student Travel Award 2026 during emergenCITY Week.
The Ruzena Bajcsy Lectures on Communication and Resilience are now in their twelfth year. Established in 2014 by the Collaborative Research Center MAKI and continued by emergenCITY, the lecture series honors Ruzena Bajcsy, a renowned scientist and pioneer in electrical engineering and computer science. Each year, distinguished female experts are invited to speak at TU Darmstadt, contributing to greater visibility of women in these fields.
This year’s speaker is Prof. Dr. Tina Comes, Scientific Director of the DLR Institute for the Protection of Terrestrial Infrastructures and Professor of Decision Theory and ICT for Resilience at TU Delft. As a member of the emergenCITY adivsory board, she will present her research on AI-supported decision-making in crisis and disaster management, based on field studies conducted across Europe, Asia, and Africa during this year’s emergenCITY week.
Navigating Uncertainty: AI and Decision Support for Crisis Management
Prof. Dr. Tina Comes
Friday, May 8, 2026, 15:30–16:15
Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Haus Dieburger Straße 241 64287 Darmstadt
Please register for the lecture until April 20, 2026.
Following the lecture, at 16:20, the Female Student Travel Award 2026 will be presented. This award recognizes outstanding achievements by female students in computer science, electrical engineering, information technology, and artificial intelligence. Awareded by emergenCITY together with the Collaborative Research Center CROSSING, the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence (hessian.AI), and the Cluster of Excellence Reasonable AI (RAI), the award includes a stipend that enables recipients to attend international conferences and connect with other female researchers in their field.
Effective AI and information and communication technologies for crisis and disaster management must be developed with real-world operational conditions in mind. In her keynote, Tina Comes presents an evidence-based approach to designing decision support systems for civil protection and humanitarian response.
Drawing on field research across multiple continents, she examines how information flows—and where it breaks down—in complex, multi-actor environments. These insights are translated into agent-based models and system designs for decision support. Her work outlines practical requirements for AI systems that must operate under conditions of uncertainty, limited or fragmented data, and time pressure. The lecture also addresses collaboration between human decision-makers and AI systems, as well as the risks associated with isolated AI development.
Prof. Dr. Tina Comes is Scientific Director at the DLR Institute for the Protection of Terrestrial Infrastructures and Professor at TU Delft. Her research focuses on improving decision-making in crisis and risk management, particularly through the use of information technology and artificial intelligence.
She combines behavioral insights with computational methods such as data analytics, digital twins, and multi-agent systems to evaluate the resilience of infrastructures and systems across different time horizons—from immediate crisis response to long-term preparedness.
She is a member of Academia Europaea and the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences. Her previous roles include positions at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and the Harvard Kennedy School. She has also led international working groups on strategic crisis management and AI in crisis contexts under the EU Science Advice Mechanism.
About the Female Student Award
About Dr. Tina Comes at TU Delft and at DLR Institute for the Protection of Terrestrial Infrastructures
