News from Department 4
Hans-Peter Seidel elected into the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy
The director of our Department 4 has been honored by the world's largest computer science association, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), for his seminal contributions to the research field of computer graphics. This election is considered one of the world's highest honors in computer graphics research.
Congratulations!
News from Department 6
Christian Theobalt elected Fellow of Eurographics
The European Association for Computer Graphics has elected Christian as Fellow of the Association in recognition of his seminal contributions to the field of computer graphics and visual computing, as well as his leadership to the community as a workshop and conference organizer and within the ERC.
Congratulations!
News from Department 4
Vahid Babei awarded Hermann Neuhaus Prize 2022
Since 2018 this prize that is named after the most generous patron of the Max Planck Society is given once a year to excellent postdocs and research group leaders who are conducting research with the potential for application. The jury was impressed by his work on Artificial Intelligence aided Design and Manufacturing.
Congratulations!
News from Department 6
Ayush Tewari receives Otto Hahn Medal
The former Department 6 PhD candidate Ayush Tewari was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal for scientific achievments he made during his PhD time in the MPI-INF. It is the most prestigious award for young scientists from the Max Planck Society.
Cangratulations!
Thomas Lengauer
Joël Ouaknine
Bernt Schiele
News from Department 2 and the Research Group Computational Biology
Bernt Schiele and Thomas Lengauer were appointed fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery.
The Association for Computing Machinery, the world's largest and most important organization of computer scientists, has elected three researchers from the two Max Planck Institutes in Saarbrücken to Fellow status, the most prominent level of membership. Two of them are Members MPI-INF.
Thomas Lengauer, MPI-INF director emeritus, for contributions to bioinformatics and medical informatics
Bernt Schiele, director at MPI-INF, for contributions to large-scale object recognition, human detection, and pose estimation
Joël Ouaknine, director at MPI-SWS, was also awarded that prestigious status for contributions to algorithmic analysis of dynamical systems
The number of Saarbrücken-based ACM fellows ist now seven, five of them are MPI directors.
Congratulations!
News from Department 1
Danupon Nanongkai appointed as new director
Danupon accepted the offer from the Max Planck Society as a new Scientific Member. He will be director of the Department 1 – Algorithms and Complexity, a field to which he made groundbreaking contributions.
Danupon starts with us in secondary office already now, and will join us in primary position in July 2022.
We are very happy and proud to have him on board.
Welcome, Danupon!
News from Department 5
Gerhard Weikum bestowed with the 2021 Konrad Zuse Medal by the German Informatics Society
The Zuse Medal is the highest award for computer science in Germany. Gerhard was chosen for his „proven achievements in the areas of distributed information systems, performance optimization of database systems, information extraction and knowledge processing.“
Congratulations, Gerhard!
Harald Ganzinger (1950 – 2004)
was bestowed with the 2021 CAV Award by the 33th International Conference on Computer Aided Verification.
The 2021 CAV Award recognizes "the pioneering contributions to the foundations of the theory and practice of satisfiability modulo theories (SMT)".
Congratulations!
News from Department 6
The Captury was aquired by Dari Motion
The Captury a MPI-INF spin-off that was founded out of the group of Prof. Christian Theobalt was aquired by Dari Motion a technology company in the area of motion health. The Captury has developed a new markerless motion capture technology that can detect movements of people very quickly and realistically. The Captury will continue to operate as an independent company, maintain and possibly expand its location in Saarbrücken, as well as market ist products.
Even the Tagesschau, Germany‘s leading national and television news service covered that story as well as Max Planck Society's News.
Congratulation, Christian and The Captury!
News from Department 2
Bernt Schiele appointed member of Leopoldina.
Professor Bernt Schiele was appointed by the German National Academy of Natural Sciences Leopoldina, as a member. This academy, founded in 1652, is the oldest continuously existing learned society in the world. Being the National Academy in Germany it advises the German government on scientific topics. In its own words: It promotes a scientifically enlightened society and the responsible application of scientific insight for the benefit of humankind and the natural world.
Congratulations, Bernt!
New Department established.
Christian Theobalt, head of the Graphics, Vision & Video research group at the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrücken, has been appointed Scientific Member by the Max Planck Society effective March 1, 2021. As scientific director at our institute he will head a new department that conducts research on fundamental issues in computer science at the interface of computer graphics, image recognition and artificial intelligence.
Congratulation, Christian!
News from Dept 4
Professor Christian Theobalt, Dept. 4 and leader of the group "Graphics, Vision & Video", was awarded with the Eurographics Outstanding Technical Contribution Award. He received receives it "for his almost 2 decades of pioneering work on methods for capturing and re-rendering models of the static and dynamic real world in motion from camera images."
Congratulation, Christian!
News from Dept 1
The Ford plants at the Saarlouis site in the Saarland are breaking new ground in research collaboration with Saarland University and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics. As part of a cooperation project, the three institutions will implement a research approach specialized for the Saarlouis plant. The aim is to find intelligent solutions for reorienting production control at the Saarland site. With the help of multidimensional algorithms and artificial intelligence, production and work processes at the Saarlouis plant are to be further optimized.
Andreas Karrenbauer is the primary investigator from MPI Informatics.
Congratulation!
News from RG 1:
Thoralf Skolem Award for Christoph Weidenbach
International Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE) Skolem Award for a CADE paper that has Passed the Test of Time, by being a Most Influential Paper in the field. presented for the paper “Towards an Automated Analysis of Security Protocols” published in the CADE-16 proceedings in 1999. The paper is recognised for two main contributions to automated deduction: first, its novel application of general theorem proving techniques to a key-exchange security protocol; and, second, its development of new decidability and undecidability results for fragments of monadic Horn theories.
Congratulations, Christoph!
News from Department 3
Anja Feldmann appointed member of acatech
Professor Anja Feldmann was appointed by acatech, the National Academy of Science and Engineering, as one of the new members. This academy, founded in 2002, provides policymakers and society with independent, evidence-based advice that is in the public interest. In doing so, the academy aims to promote sustainable growth through innovation.
Congratulations, Anja!
News from Department 5:
"Leibniz Preis" for Thomas Neumann
Tthe DFG (German Science Foundation) awarded Thomas Neumann of TU Munich a Leibniz Preis, the highest scientific award of Germany. Thomas was a Senior Researcher in Gerhard Weikum's group from 2006 to 2010.
Congratulations to Thomas Neumann and Department 5!
News from Department 1:
ERC Grant for Karl Bringmann
The European Research Council awards Karl Bringmann an ERC Starting Grant. During the next 5 years Karl can use the budget of 1.5 million Euros to pursue his research on Fine-Grained Complexity Theory / Linear Programming.
Congratulations, Karl!
News from Department 1: Happy 70th Birthday, Kurt!
Kurt Mehlhorn, Founding Director of the MPI for Informatics, turned 70 on Aug 29th. August 30th was his last day as a Max Planck Director.
Happy retirement!
News from Department 1
Karl Bringmann honored with “Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Preis”
The German Science Foundation (DFG) honors Karl Bringmann for his achievements in theoretical computer science; from the laudatio:
Karl Bringmann has written two master's dissertations, in computer science and mathematics, and published nine conference papers while he was still a student. As a doctoral and postdoctoral researcher, he presented his work on algorithms and complexity theory at many leading international congresses on theoretical computer science, where he was also invited on several occasions to serve on the programme committee. Bringmann has made extremely important contributions to his two fields of research, also addressing questions in many areas which are distantly related to one another. One of his most significant findings is the calculation of new fundamental ‘lower limits’ for important problems such as the Fréchet distance of curves.
News from Department 3
Anja Feldmann receives Schelling Prize
The most important science prize of the Bavarian Academy of the sciences, the Schelling Prize, endowed with 25,000 Euros, goes 2018 to Anja Feldmann. She received the award for groundbreaking research that will adapt the Internet to the demands of the future. The award ceremony took place on Saturday, 08 Dec 2018 in Munich.
News from Department 3
25-May-2018: Colloquium to celebrate the work and scientific career of Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Lengauer on the occasion of his retirement.
News from Department 4
Christian Theobalt received an ERC Consolidator Grant for his proposal "4-D Reconstruction of Real Scenes", see press release for details. He was also awarded with the 2017 "Karl Heinz Beckurts-Preis", one of Germany's most prestigious awards for basic research with a high practical relevance. (press release)
News from Department 3
Thomas Lengauer was listed for the fourth year in a row (2014 - 2017) on the Clarivate Liste https://clarivate.com/hcr/ as Highly Cited Researcher (top 1%).
News from Department 1
Kurt Mehlhorn was awarded with a doctor honoris causa by the Department of Computer Engineering & Informatics of the University of Patras.
News from Department 1
Christoph Lenzen received an ERC Starting Grant. His proposal "A Theory of Reliable Hardware" was accepted by the ERC. The project startet in August 2017 and will be funded for 5 years with a total sum of approx. 1.5 million Euros.
News from Department 4:
Hans-Peter Seidel awarded with Eurographics Medal 2017
Professor Dr. Hans-Peter Seidel was awarded with the 2017 Eurographics Medal in Gold.
The laudatio from Eurographics:
Eurographics is very pleased to award the Eurographics Medal 2017 to Prof. Hans-Peter Seidel for his outstanding scientific contributions to computer graphics and geometric modelling, for his academic achievements as a scholar and mentor, and for his leadership in developing the Eurographics Association.
Hans-Peter Seidel is the scientific director and chair of the computer graphics group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and a professor of computer science at Saarland University. Before joining the Max-Planck-Institut in 1999, he has been on the faculty of the University of Erlangen, Germany, from 1992-1999.
Prof. Seidel is one of the most prolific, influential and most widely cited researchers in computer graphics in the world. Through his work he has contributed significantly to the establishment and advancement of computer graphics as an academic discipline. His technical contributions comprise a wide range of topics in visual computing including geometric modelling, rendering, imaging, vision, scene reconstruction, video processing and perception. Hans-Peter is one of the all time leading authors of SIGGRAPH publications and he IS the leading author of Eurographics.
Through his mentorship Hans-Peter Seidel has also developed a whole generation of students and postdocs into leading senior scholars and thus he has shaped the academic landscape in computer graphics in Europe and throughout the world.
Through decades, Hans-Peter has displayed strongest commitment to the Eurographics association and he has served in leading positions as its president, long term member of the executive committee and board, as well as its conference chair. He is also the founding chair of the awards programme.
Hans-Peter Seidel is a fellow of the organization and he received the distinguished career award of Eurographics in 2012.
Please join us in congratulating Hans-Peter for an outstanding career in computer graphics and to the Eurographics Medal 2017.
Eurographics Medal award ceremony at the 2017 annual meeting of the European Association of Computer Graphics in Lyon, France. EG president Prof. Dr. Marie-Paule Cani (ENS Paris), Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Seidel, Laudator Prof. Dr. Markus Gross (ETH Zürich). [right-to-left]
Photo: Eurographics 2017 / Eric Guérin.
News from Department 5:
Treasure Hunt in the Data Jungle – Article about Pauli Miettinen
The webpage of Max Planck Society covers the work of Pauli Miettinen with this article.
News from Department 4:
MPI-INF contribution to the "Pearls of Science" event in the Harnack House
Professor Christian Theobalt, Dept. 4, was invited to a closed event of Max Planck Society and Fraunhofer Society in the Harnack House in Berlin.
The executive committees of Max Planck Society and Fraunhofer Society invited top political leaders from the federal government to discuss leading edge research on its way to application. On Jan 10, ten scientists from Max Planck and Fraunhofer Institutes presented their latest research results to chancellor Angela Merkel, secretary for education and research Johanna Wanka, and science state secretary Rainer Sontowski. Christian Theobalt had the opportunity to represent the MPI for Informatics with results from his research group.
The responses were apperently very encouraging. Chancellor Merkel praised the comprehensible, yet compact presentations; she promised to support reliable financial conditions for German basic research in the future.
Department 4:
The current German edition of the quarterly research magazine of the Max Planck Society, Max Planck Forschung, features the work of Christian Theobalt and his group. In the current issue 2.2016, an article titled Computer schneiden Grimassen(Computers Pulling Faces) decribes their research project Puppeteering Faces. The article (in German) can be downloaded here.
News from Department 4
Jürgen Steimle, also Cluster of Excellence MMCI, won an ERC Starting Grant. His proposal "InteractiveSkin: Digital Fabrication of Personalized On-Body User Interfaces" was accepted by the ERC. The project will be funded for 5 years with a total sum of 1.5 million Euros.
News from Department 4
During the Symposium on Solid and Physical Modeling in Berlin the Solid Modeling Association has awarded Hans-Peter Seidel with the title of Solid Modeling Pioneer.
News from Department 3
Prof. Walter Tichy from Karlsruhe Institute for Technology has conducted a detailed interview with Thomas Lengauer on the rise of Computational Biology which has been published on ACMs Ubiquity site at http://ubiquity.acm.org/
One can download the whole interview as a pdf here.
News from Department 5
Gerhard Weikum will receive the 2016 SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award, the most prestigious award from the SIGMOD. He is the second German computer scientist bestowed with this award. Congratulation!
ERC Advanced Grant for Holger Hermanns
Holger Hermanns, professor for computer science at Saarland University, was awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council [Link]. This grant donates 2.4 million Euros to his research project on embedded systems "Power to the People".
ERC Grants are the highest level of European research support. They provide substantial support money as well as significant prestige for the grant holders who are chosen in a rigorous selection process. This funding instrument is meant to support topics of Frontier Research, that is high-risk science at the edge of current understanding.
News from Department 4
The project "Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment" from the Graphics, Vision & Video group headed by Christian Theobalt has seen wide coverage in media. Some of the links to web-based media are listed on the project page.
The official video was currently viewed almost 2 million times on youtube. The group will present this work during CVPR 2016.
News from Department 1
Andreas Wiesereceived a Emmy-Noether award from the German Research Foundation
(DFG). The award comes with more than 900,000 € financial support.
Sandy Heydrich received a Google PhD Scholarship.
Kurt Mehlhorn was elected to the US Academy of Science and was also appointed to the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC).
Parinya Chalermook and Eric-Jan van Leeuwen were promoted to Senior Researcher.
New scientific director at the MPI-SWS
Joel Ouaknine, presently a Professor at the University of Oxford, will join the MPI-SWS faculty as a director effective Aug 1, 2016.
"We're extremely pleased to have such an accomplished colleague join our ranks!" says Peter Druschel, founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems.
