Informatics Annual Lecture 2026: Inspiring excellence in computer science

Rethinking the Role of Scientific Discovery in the Era of AI The growing availability of large-scale scientific datasets creates opportunities for discovery that are no longer driven by narrowly specified research questions. Instead, science increasingly unfolds through sustained exploration of vast, high-dimensional hypothesis spaces, where multiple explanations, mechanisms, and associations may remain plausible. Professor Mihaela van der Schaar refers to this as hypothesis hunting: an open-ended, cumulative search for insight that challenges traditional, pipeline-based models of scientific discovery. In this talk, Mihaela presents a framework that rethinks discovery as an agentic process, in which networks of interacting AI agents and human experts jointly explore, critique, and refine hypotheses under shared norms of evaluation. She will discuss how heterogeneous, LLM-based research agents can self-organize into evolving networks that generate, review, and extend findings—trading off novelty, quality, and diversity over time. Drawing on results from biomedical discovery, including cancer cohort analyses, Mihaela argues that such socially structured agent networks can sustain large-scale exploratory discovery, complementing experimental science while reshaping how knowledge is generated, accumulated, and validated in the era of AI. Speaker bio Mihaela van der Schaar is the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Medicine at the University of Cambridge. In addition to leading the van der Schaar Lab, Mihaela is founder and director of the Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine (CCAIM). Mihaela was elected IEEE Fellow in 2009 and Fellow of the Royal Society in 2024. She has received numerous awards, including the Johann Anton Merck Award (2024), the Oon Prize on Preventative Medicine from the University of Cambridge (2018), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2004), 3 IBM Faculty Awards, the IBM Exploratory Stream Analytics Innovation Award, the Philips Make a Difference Award and several best paper awards, including the IEEE Darlington Award. She was a Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute in London between 2016 and 2024. In 2025, she was appointed as Spinoza Guest Professor at Amsterdam University Medical Center. About the Informatics Annual Lecture Established in 2024, the Department of Informatics flagship event provides a platform for distinguished academics in the field of computer science, AI and data science to showcase their groundbreaking contributions that are inspiring the future of technology and innovation.