Boards

Chairwoman

Prof. Dr. Ina Schieferdecker

Head of the department „Research for Digitization and Innovation“ in the Federal Ministry for Education and Research

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ina Schieferdecker is head of the research department for innovation and digitisation at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research since 01.10.2019. Previously she was head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS), professor at the Technical University of Berlin for quality engineering of open, distributed systems and director of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, the German Internet Institute. She is a member of the Academy of Engineering Sciences (acatech). She was a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), the High-Tech Forum 2025 (HTF), the Sustainability 2030 Science Platform, and the scientific and technical director of the Technology Foundation Berlin (TSB). She has received numerous awards for her scientific work, including the EUREKA Innovation Award and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation Prize for Young University Teachers.

Prof. Dr. Susanne Albers

Chair of Algorithm and Complexity, Technical University of Munich

Susanne Albers is a Computer Scientist and a Full Professor for Algorithms and Complexity at the Computer Science department of Technical University of Munich. From 1984 until 1990, she studied Mathematics, Computer Science, and Business Administration at the University of Osnabrueck. In 1993, Albers completed her phD at Saarland University. Until 1999, she worked at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and spent her research stays in the USA, in Japan, and in other European countries. Additionally, Albers received the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society in 1993. In 1999, she was awarded her Habilitation and accepted a Chair at the University of Dortmund, which she held until 2001. Her research area comprises the design and analysis of algorithms, in particular online and approximation algorithms. Furthermore, she also focuses on algorithmic game theory and Algorithm engineering. As a Professor, Albers also taught at University of Freiburg and Humboldt University Berlin. Since 2013, she has been a Professor at the Technical University of Munich, where she is holding the Chair for Algorithms and Complexity. In 2008, she received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation, the highest honor awarded in German research including a financial support of 2.5 Mio. euros. She is also a member of the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz as well as a Fellow of the German Association for Computer Science (GI) and the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science.

Udo Helmbrecht is the former President of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the Director of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). Helmbrecht studied Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science at the Ruhr University in Bochum. Having received his Diploma in Physics, he then went on to obtain a Doctorate in Theoretical Physics in 1984. In 1985, Helmbrecht began his career as a systems analyst, working on a German Chinese project at Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm GmhB (MBB). In 1990, Helmbrecht was assigned the position of Head of the Technical Data Systems Department and between 1992 and 1995 he worked as Information Technology Program Manager, assuming responsibility for the program and project management of information technology in the military aircraft product group. In 1995, Helmbrecht was appointed CIO of the Bayerische Versorgungskammer, a public insurance institution for pensions. As Director and Division Manager of Information Processing, he was responsible for data processing, information technology and security, application development, as well as data center and network infrastructure. Here, he succeeded in introducing several entrepreneurial operating methods. Between 2003 and 2009, Helmbrecht was the President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in Bonn. In this position, he successfully developed the agency’s central service provision for information security within the German Federal Government. Since October 2009, he has been the Director of ENISA. In November 2010, Helmbrecht was appointed Honorary Professor at the Universität der Bundeswehr, Munich, Germany.

Prof. Dr. Manfred Schmitt

President of Saarland University

Manfred Schmitt is a Professor for Molecular and Cell Biology and the President of Saarland University. Manfred Schmitt completed his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the University of Mainz. After finishing his PhD and receiving a research scholarship by the German Research Foundation (DFG), he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the UMass Medical School in Worcester, USA. In 1990, he became a research assistant at the University of Mainz; he was awarded his Habilitation in Microbiology in 1993. In 1996, Manfred Schmitt was appointed Professor for Molecular and Cell Biology at the Center for Human and Molecular Biology (ZHMB) at Saarland University, where he held the position of Director between 2003 and 2011. From 2009 until 2014, he was the Vice-President of Education at Saarland University. He has been the President of Saarland University since March 1, 2017. Despite two offers of Chairs at Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf in 2007 and TU Dresden in 2012, Manfred Schmitt decided to build his teaching and research career at Saarland University. He is involved in the collaborative research center SFB 1027 “Physical modelling of non-equilibrium processes in biological systems”. Additionally, he is also engaged in two DFG-funded priority programs and an international graduate school (IRTG 1830) involving Saarland University, Kaiserslautern University of Technology, and the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. From 2008 until 2017, Manfred Schmitt also held the position of Program Advisor at the German-French University (DFH) for German-French degree programs in biology.

Prof. Dr. Petra Mutzel

Chair of Computational Analytics, University of Bonn

Petra Mutzel holds the Chair of Computational Analytics and is heading the group „High Performance Computing and Analytics” at the University of Bonn. After earning her diploma in Mathematics at the Augsburg University and finishing her doctorate in Computer Science at the University of Cologne, she joined the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbruecken and obtained her habilitation at Saarland University in 1999. She held the Chair for Algorithms and Data Structures at TU Wien (1999 – 2004) as well as the Chair for Algorithm Engineering/Experimental Algorithms at the TU Dortmund University (2004 – 2019). Her research focuses on design, theoretical analysis, and experimental evaluation of algorithms (“Algorithm Engineering”), especially in the areas of “Network Analysis and Visualization”, “Combinatorial Optimization” as well as “Big Data Analysis” and their application in natural sciences. The “Alcatel SEL Stiftung für Kommunikationsforschung” awarded her the research prize “Technische Kommunikation 2000“. From 2013 to 2018, Petra Mutzel was an elected member of the “DFG-Senatsauschuss” and the “DFG-Bewilligungsausschuss” for Collaborative Research Centers (SFB).

Prof. Dr. Srdjan Capkun

Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board

Srdjan Capkun (Srđan Čapkun) is a Full Professor in the Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich and Director of the Zurich Information Security and Privacy Center (ZISC). He was born in Split, Croatia. He received his Dipl.Ing. Degree in Electrical Engineering / Computer Science from the University of Split in 1998, and his Ph.D. degree in Communication Systems from EPFL in 2004. Prior to joining ETH Zurich in 2006, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Networked & Embedded Systems Laboratory (NESL), University of California Los Angeles and an Assistant Professor in the Informatics and Mathematical Modelling Department, Technical University of Denmark (DTU). His research interests lie in system and network security. His focus areas are wireless security (in particular secure positioning) and system security where he focuses on trusted computing and blockchain technologies. He is a co-founder of 3db Access, a company focusing on secure distance measurement and proximity-based access control, and of Sound-Proof, a spin-off focusing on usable on-line authentication. In 2016, he received an ERC Consolidator Grant for a project on securing positioning in wireless networks.