I'm a computational linguist and Research Fellow at Trier University, where I study whether Language Models can genuinely stand in for human participants in research, or whether their fluency masks a deeper mismatch. My Ph.D. thesis tested this across psychometrics and social media simulation, and the consistent answer is: not without rigorous, domain-specific validation. I build these metrics that expose where Language Models diverge from human behavior, and the frameworks researchers need to use them responsibly.
Together with related issues in silicon sampling, including language and cultural biases and the lack of ecological validation, my thesis and discussions with colleagues and co-authors sparked the idea for a research cooperative that formalizes, evaluates, and critiques the use of language models to simulate human behavior. I called the cooperative EVAS: Ecological Validation of Artificial Simulacra. Find out more on our website: evas-research.github.io
Simon Münker, Nils Schwager, Achim Rettinger
Proceedings of the 19th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL)
Simon Münker, Achim Rettinger, Damian Trilling
Proceedings of The Big Picture v2: Crafting a Research Narrative at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
Simon Münker, Fabio Sartori
Proceedings of the 59th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS)
Simon Münker, Nils Schwager, Kai Kugler, Michael Heseltine, Achim Rettinger
Proceedings of Shaping Multilingual, Multimodal AI for the Social Sciences and Humanities (LLMs4SSH) at the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC)
Nils Schwager, Simon Münker, Alistair Plum, Achim Rettinger
Proceedings for the 15th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Subjectivity, Sentiment Social Media Analysis (WASSA) at the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL)
Sjoerd B. Stolwijk, Mark Boukes, Wang Ngai Yeung, Yufang Liao, Simon Münker, Anne C. Kroon, Damian Trilling
Communication Methods and Measures
Simon Münker
Proceedings of 0th Moral and Legal AI Alignment Symposium at IACAP/AISB
Simon Münker
Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP)
Simon Münker
Journal for Language Technology and Computational Linguistics (JLCL)
Simon Münker, Achim Rettinger
Joint Proceedings of the European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC) Workshops and Tutorials
Simon Münker, Achim Rettinger, Damian Trilling
Proceedings of Student Research Workshop at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)
Kai Kugler, Simon Münker, Johannes Höhmann, Achim Rettinger
Journal of Computational Literary Studies (JCLS)
Implementing and maintaining Python-based modules for synthetic social media users using language models and evaluating discourse metrics for the EU-funded project Twin of Online Social Networks (TWON). Evaluating language models as human simulacra in communication and decision-making. Managing graduate student research groups in applied computational linguistics subjects. Planning and conducting lectures and seminars in natural language processing.
Implemented and co-authored InvBERT: Reconstructing Text from Contextualized Word Embeddings by inverting the BERT pipeline, published in the Conference of Computational Literary Studies. Implemented and maintained a pipeline to scrape social media posts and match them with related news articles as part of the Social Sentiment in Times of Crises (SOSEC). Planned and conducted an exercise in Python programming.
Provided academic support for multiple advanced mathematics and computer science courses, including probability theory, machine learning, and formal language. Developed supplementary teaching materials, conducted exercise sessions, and provided individualized student guidance. Assisted professors in grading assignments and managing classroom logistics.
Developed responsive web applications using modern JavaScript frameworks with React and Vue.js. Implemented responsive design principles and optimized web interfaces for multiple devices and browsers. Collaborated with design and backend teams to integrate frontend components and ensure adherence to project specifications.
Created and maintained responsive web solutions using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Developed custom WordPress themes and plugins to meet client-specific requirements. Implemented search engine and loading performance optimizations.
Gained experience in communication and advertising, developing marketing strategies and visual communication materials. Assisted in client presentations, brand identity design, and social media content creation. Developed skills in graphic design, copywriting, and project management within a creative agency environment.
A Critical Examination of Large Language Models as Human Simulacra.
NLP Methodologies, Deep Learning, Language Model Interpretation. Active member of CoDiPho (student council Computational Linguistics & Digital Humanities).
Programming, Logical & Mathematical Foundations, Corpus Analysis, Parsing, Machine Learning, Computational Linguistic Downstream Tasks.
Digital Media Design, Frontend Web Development, Visual Communication.
Summer Term 2026, Trier University
Summer Term 20[24|25|26], Trier University
Winter Term 20[24|25], Trier University
Summer Term 20[24|25], Trier University & University of Luxembourg
Winter term 202[23|24|25], Trier university
Winter Term 2023, Trier University
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) more→
Fach Computerlinguistik & Digital Humanities
Förderkreis der Allgemeinen Linguistik an der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf more→
Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Language Models, Agentic AI, API Development
Python (uv, Pydantic, Pandas, Polars, FastAPI, scikit-learn, Pytorch, Hugging Face ecosystem), Web Technologies, (Java/Typescript, Astro, Svelte), R (Tidyverse, psych), Writing (LaTeX, Typst)
Academic Research, University Teaching, Communication & Presentations