2024 Best Dissertation Award Honors 1 Winner & 2 Runners-up for Informatics Research Excellence
We are delighted to announce Tobias Röddiger, a PhD graduate from the Department of Informatics, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, as the winner of Informatics Europe 2024 Best Dissertation Award (BDA).
The Springer-sponsored Award was presented on 29 October at the 20th European Informatics Leaders Summit (ECSS 2024) in Sliema, Malta. The annual Award recognises outstanding PhD dissertations in Informatics, encouraging emerging researchers in Informatics and related disciplines, and sharing exceptional Informatics research with the Informatics Europe (IE) community and beyond.
Tobias Röddiger expresses his gratitude for winning this year’s Award with his thesis, “Earables: Wearable Computing on the Ears”. "In my dissertation, I explored the transformative potential of ear-based sensing devices, pioneering advancements in sensor technology and artificial intelligence to redefine earphones from mere audio devices into a versatile platform for human augmentation and health improvement. Receiving this prestigious award not only acknowledges my work but also underscores the immense, untapped potential of earable technology. The Award fuels my passion to push the boundaries of wearable computing, and empower these devices to enhance human health in previously unimaginable ways.”
On behalf of the Award Committee, Prof. Dimka Karastoyanova (University of Groningen), IE Board Director and BDA Committee Co-Chair, presented the Award to Tobias at the ceremony. She shared, “This year’s Award attracted a significant number of excellent nominations, highlighting the high-quality and variety of Informatics research among IE member institutions. We congratulate Tobias on his outstanding achievement.”
Also attending the ceremony was Prof. Harald Gall (University of Zurich), another IE Board Director and BDA Committee Co-Chair. He announced and congratulated the two runners-up of this year’s Award. “We’d like to acknowledge their remarkable work and commitment to impactful Informatics research for positive and enduring societal change.”
Tim Quatmann, Department of Computer Science, RWTH Aachen University (Germany), received one of this year’s two BDA runners-up recognitions for his thesis, “Verification of Multi-Objective Markov Models”. He expressed his honour for the recognition. “Much dedication and passion went into my dissertation. The Award motivates me to strive forward in my research career to improve the safety, reliability, and performance of digital systems.”
Michael Sammler, Saarland University and Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (Germany), received the other BDA runner-up recognition for his thesis, “Automated and Foundational Verification of Low-Level Programs”. He stated, “Low-level programs, like operating systems or hypervisors, are central to modern computer-based systems, ensuring the reliability and security of all code running on top of them. My thesis demonstrates how one can build verification tools that ensure the correctness of these low-level programs, focusing on tools that provide a high degree of automation while still producing a machine-checkable proof of correctness. Receiving the Award motivates me to continue my research on verifying these critical low-level systems.”
The Best Dissertation Award carries a prize of 3,000 EUR for the winner, sponsored by Springer Nature as part of their IE sponsorship. It includes also an invitation to publish the winner’s thesis in Springer’s Computer Science program. To discover more about Springer, please visit www.springer.com.
About the IE Best Dissertation Award (BDA)
The BDA is an annual award recognizing excellent PhD dissertation in Informatics from one of the IE member institutions. This year, the Award Committee received 23 nominations, each resulting from a preliminary selection at each individual institution. All candidates were nominated as the best dissertation representing their institutions in the academic years 2022-2023 or 2023-2024, but on or before December 31, 2023.
The Committee has organized the nomination review process in two phases. In the first phase, each dissertation was reviewed by three committee members. The eight dissertations considered excellent by the reviewers were moved to the second phase in which each committee member reviewed and ranked all of them. The ranking was presented and discussed by the committee during a consensus meeting, where 1 winner and 2 runners-up were selected. To learn more about the Award, visit www.informatics-europe.org/research/best-dissertation-award.html.
About Informatics Europe
Informatics Europe represents the academic and research community in Informatics (or computer science) in Europe. Bringing together university departments, research laboratories and industry, Informatics Europe has nearly 200 member institutions in more than 30 countries, connecting over 50,000 Informatics researchers in Europe and beyond. Informatics Europe creates a strong voice to promote concerted positions and acts on shared priorities in education, research, knowledge transfer and social impact of Informatics. Explore our website to learn more about our projects and services.