Female Student Travel Award 2026: Supporting Women in Computer Science and Engineering
Six outstanding master’s students from TU Darmstadt have received the Female Student Travel Award 2026. The award was jointly presented by the Collaborative Research Centre CROSSING, the LOEWE Centre emergenCITY, the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence (hessian.AI), and the Cluster of Excellence Reasonable AI (RAI). This year’s recipients are Michelle Geisler, Jacqueline Koch, Daniela Risis, Gözde Saçıak, Isabelle Sauer, and Leonie Schüssler.
Daniela Risis and Leonie Schüssler received the Female Student Travel Award from RAI and hessian.AI, respectively. Daniela Risis (M.Sc. Computer Science) is interested in the intersection of AI, data science and large language models, with publications and workshop presentations already to her name. Leonie Schüssler (M.Sc. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) specializes in computer vision and has already co-authored two scientific publications, including a CVPR contribution.
The Female Student Travel Award recognizes advanced bachelor’s and master’s students at TU Darmstadt who demonstrate above-average academic achievement and whose study interests align with the research focus of the participating consortia: cybersecurity, resilient urban infrastructures, and artificial intelligence. The award enables recipients to attend a leading international conference connecting women in computer science and engineering. This year, for the first time, all awardees alternatively have the option to attend a scientific research conference, reflecting the shared commitment of the participating projects to giving students early access to the research community and encouraging them to pursue careers in science.
The award ceremony took place on May 8, 2026, following the Ruzena Bajcsy Lecture featuring Professor Tina Comes (TU Delft), hosted by the LOEWE Centre emergenCITY at the Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Haus in Darmstadt.
Photocredits: Sascha Mannel/emergenCITY
