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Katja Hofmann

Partner Research Manager, co-leading the People-Centric AI research area, Microsoft

  • Partner Research Manager, co-leading the People-Centric AI research area, Microsoft Research Cambridge12
  • Board member (since 2022) and Secretary of the Board (since 2024), International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)1

Katja Hofmann is a Partner Research Manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge, where Hofmann co-leads the People-Centric AI research area, with work on generative AI, interactive media and game intelligence. Hofmann led the project behind WHAM, the World and Human Action Model that Microsoft introduced as Muse in February 2025, and is one of the four senior authors of the accompanying Nature paper. Hofmann previously led Microsoft Research's Game Intelligence team and serves on the board of the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).123

At a glance

Current roles
Partner Research Manager, co-leading the People-Centric AI research area +1 more
Sector
Company
Work listed
2
Sources cited
4
Profile reviewed

Role

Hofmann is a Partner Research Manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge and co-leads its People-Centric AI research area, which combines machine learning with human-computer interaction, design and social science. Hofmann previously led the Game Intelligence team, focused on machine learning research for video games, which now forms part of that area.1

Hofmann has served on the board of ICLR since 2022 and as Secretary of the Board since 2024, after serving as Senior Program Chair for ICLR 2021 and General Chair for ICLR 2022.1

Muse and WHAM

On February 19, 2025, Nature published "World and Human Action Models towards gameplay ideation", and Hofmann's Microsoft Research post introduced the model as Muse, a generative AI model for gameplay ideation. The paper's contributions statement says Hofmann led the project, and Microsoft released the WHAM weights and sample gameplay data on Hugging Face.324

Work and contributions

  • Muse (Microsoft Research WHAM) Open weights

    Led the WHAM project, per the Nature paper's contributions statement, and wrote Microsoft Research's post introducing Muse as a generative model for gameplay ideation.32

  • WHAM 1.6B (Muse) Open weights

    Listed among the authors on the WHAM model card, and one of the senior authors of the Nature paper describing the model whose weights Microsoft released.43

Timeline

  1. Served as Senior Program Chair of ICLR 2021.1
  2. Served as General Chair of ICLR 2022 and joined the ICLR board.1
  3. Became Secretary of the ICLR Board.1
  4. Introduced Muse as Nature published the WHAM paper, with Hofmann as project lead.23

Where they work

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References

4 sources · profile reviewed Oct 22, 2026 · data updated Oct 22, 2026

  1. Katja Hofmann at Microsoft ResearchMicrosoft Research · Official page · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  2. Introducing Muse: Our first generative AI model designed for gameplay ideation — Microsoft Research blogMicrosoft Research · Announcement · published Feb 19, 2025 · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  3. World and Human Action Models towards gameplay ideation (Nature)Nature · Paper · published Feb 19, 2025 · accessed Oct 22, 2026
  4. microsoft/wham model cardMicrosoft (Hugging Face) · Model card · accessed Oct 22, 2026