|Talks|

Deep Learning for Temporal Graphs: Understanding the Expressivity of Causality-Aware Graph Neural Networks

Visiting speaker
Hybrid
Past Talk
Ingo Scholtes
Professor, University of Wuerzburg, Germany
Oct 15, 2025
3:00 pm
EST
Oct 15, 2025
3:00 pm
In-person
Portsoken Street
London, E1 8PH, UK
The Roux Institute
Room
100 Fore Street
Portland, ME 04101
Network Science Institute
2nd floor
Network Science Institute
11th floor
177 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115
Network Science Institute
2nd floor
Room
58 St Katharine's Way
London E1W 1LP, UK
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Talk recording

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have become a cornerstone for the application of deep learning to relational data on complex networks. However, we increasingly have access to time-resolved data that not only capture which nodes are connected to each other, but also when and in which temporal order those connections occur. A number of works have shown how the timing and ordering of links shapes the causal topology of networked systems, i.e. which nodes can possibly influence each other over time. Those works have shed light on the question how the time dimension of dynamic graphs influences node centralities, community structures, or the evolution of dynamical processes. However, we lack methods to incorporate those insights into state-of-the-art deep learning models. Addressing this gap, we introduce a time-aware graph neural network architecture for temporal graphs. We propose a novel notion of temporal graph isomorphism and develop a temporal generalization of the Weisfeiler-Leman algorithm to heuristically distinguish non-isomorphic temporal graphs. Building on this foundation, we derive a novel message passing scheme for temporal graph neural networks that operates on the event graph representation of temporal graphs. Our approach accounts for temporal-topological patterns that unfold via causal walks, i.e. temporally ordered sequences of connections by which nodes can causally influence each other over time.
About the speaker
Ingo Scholtes is a Full Professor for Machine Learning in Complex Networks at University of Wuerzburg, Germany and co-director of the Center for Artificial intelligence and Data Science (CAIDAS). He has a background in computer science and mathematics and obtained his doctorate degree from University of Trier, Germany. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the interdisciplinary Chair of Systems Design at ETH Zurich from 2011 till 2016. In 2018, he was appointed as SNSF Professor for Data Analytics at University of Zurich. In 2019, he was appointed Full Professor at University of Wuppertal. Since 2021, he holds the CAIDAS-Chair of Machine Learning for Complex Networks at University of Wuerzburg. In 2014, he was awarded a Junior-Fellowship from the German Informatics Society. In 2018, he was awarded a CHF 1.5 Mio SNSF Professorship Grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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Oct 15, 2025