Researcher / Applied Research Scientist

Pretrained language models for software engineering, retrieval, and ranking.

I recently completed my PhD in Computer Science on pretrained language models for automated software prototyping and verification, advised by Prof. Dr. Christian Bartelt and Prof. Dr. Simone Paolo Ponzetto. My work focuses on information retrieval, ranking models, LLM/MLLM evaluation, agentic systems, and self-evolving systems. I build retrieval and reranking pipelines for natural-language requirements, documents, and search data, as well as systems for collecting and structuring web information, and evaluate them systematically for effectiveness, reliability, robustness, and practical use.

Portrait of Kristian Kolthoff

Selected publications

Papers with available code, datasets, or supplementary material.

Full Scholar profile
2026

GUISpector: An MLLM Agent Framework for Automated Verification of Natural Language Requirements in GUI Prototypes

ICSE 2026 · MLLM agents, GUI verification, natural-language requirements

2025

GUI-ReRank: Enhancing GUI Retrieval with Multi-Modal LLM-based Reranking

ASE 2025 · GUI retrieval, embeddings, MLLM reranking

2025

Closing the Loop between User Stories and GUI Prototypes: An LLM-Based Assistant for Cross-Functional Integration in Software Development

CHI 2025 · LLM assistant, user stories, GUI prototypes

2025

GUIDE: LLM-Driven GUI Generation Decomposition for Automated Prototyping

ICSE 2025 · LLM-based GUI generation, prototyping, evaluation

2024

Self-Elicitation of Requirements with Automated GUI Prototyping

ASE 2024 · Requirements elicitation, GUI prototyping, dialogue systems

2024

Interlinking User Stories and GUI Prototyping: A Semi-Automatic LLM-based Approach

RE 2024 · User stories, GUI prototypes, LLM-based interlinking

2023

Data-Driven Prototyping via Natural-Language-based GUI Retrieval

Automated Software Engineering Journal · BERT, learning-to-rank, GUI retrieval

2020

GUI2WiRe: Rapid Wireframing with a Mined and Large-Scale GUI Repository using Natural Language Requirements

ASE 2020 · Natural-language requirements, GUI retrieval, wireframing

Research Positions

2024 — Present

Applied Research Scientist

Ciconia Systems GmbH / Vergabepilot.AI · Mannheim, Germany

Applied research on AI search, retrieval, reranking, and agentic web-data workflows for tender discovery.

2025 — Present

Scientific Researcher / PhD Candidate

Clausthal University of Technology · Machine Learning and COgnitive SoftwaRE (CORE)

Research on MLLM-based automated GUI verification and self-evolving systems.

2018 — 2025

Scientific Researcher / PhD Candidate

University of Mannheim · AI Systems Engineering Research Group (InES)

Research on retrieval, reranking, and LLM-based prototyping methods for GUI applications.