News from the research group Knowledge-Based Systems of March 22, 2016

Markus Krötzsch receives Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2016

Markus Krötzsch of the Institute of Theoretical Computer Science will receive the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz-Prize 2016, which is conferred by German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, named after the physicist and former president of the DFG, is a distinction for young researchers and provides further incentive for excellent achievements in their research work, and is considered the most important research award for early carreer researchers in Germany.

A total of 134 researchers have been proposed for this year's award. Ten of them have been selected to receive the prize, which comes with 20,000 EUR award money, during a public ceremony taking place on 18 May 2016 in Berlin.

Markus Krötzsch is distinguished for his works in the area of knowledge representation, which is focussed on the machine-readable representation and intelligent automated processing of human knowledge in computers. This base technology thereby supports the use of large and complex data sets in a variety of application fields. Research in the area is concerned with formal foundations, the development and optimisation of software systems, and the application of these systems in practical scenarios. Among Krötzsch's varied contributions in this field, the selection committee also highlighted his work on Wikidata, the "database of Wikipedia", which is now providing all language editions of Wikipedia with machine-readable data that can already be seen in millions of articles.

The prize is welcomed not only by the ICCL and the Faculty of Computer Science, but also by the cfaed Cluster of Excellence and the CRC HAEC, with whom Krötzsch is closely affiliated. TU Dresden moreover can celebrate another Maier-Leibnitz laureate in 2016: historian Christoph Lundgreen also receives one of the coveted awards.

More info at: http://www.dfg.de/service/presse/pressemitteilungen/2016/pressemitteilung nr 12/index.html