LOEWE Top Professorship for Software Expert Prof. Dr. Mira Mezini
State program provides nearly two million euros for research
Wiesbaden. Prof. Dr. Mira Mezini has been awarded a top LOEWE professorship at Darmstadt Technical University (TU). The LOEWE research funding program of the state of Hesse is providing around 1.9 million euros over a period of five years to endow her professorship. This was decided by the LOEWE Administrative Commission on the recommendation of the LOEWE Program Advisory Board.
International expert for software technology
“Prof. Dr. Mezini is an excellent and also internationally highly visible expert in software engineering, who already in 2012 was the first German computer scientist to acquire a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. She is also dedicated to the socially highly relevant topics of data protection, data security and artificial intelligence,” explains Science Minister Angela Dorn. “Especially in disciplines such as computer science, the competition for the best minds has intensified significantly. The LOEWE top professorships help to bring internationally sought-after researchers to Hessen or to keep them here. With the LOEWE funds for material or personnel resources, we create conditions that can keep up not only with international universities, but also with commercial enterprises.”
“I warmly congratulate Mira Mezini on being awarded a LOEWE Top Professorship,” said Prof. Dr. Tanja Brühl, President of TU Darmstadt. “Mira Mezini shapes the outstanding competence of TU Darmstadt in the field of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity with her excellent research and in the exchange with our partners in science, industry and society. As co-director of the Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence hessian.AI, she not only shapes AI made in Darmstadt, but also the Hessian AI ecosystem with great passion and radiance. As a member of the ATHENE Board, she is also shaping cybersecurity far beyond Hesse. We are therefore extremely pleased that a highly esteemed colleague will remain at TU Darmstadt thanks to support from the state of Hesse.”
Prof. Dr. Mira Mezini received her PhD from the University of Siegen and was Visiting Assistant Professor at Northeastern University in Boston (USA) before being appointed to the TU Darmstadt in 2000. There she is head of the software engineering department in the computer science division. Mira Mezini is Co-Director of hessian.AI. She plays important roles in a number of collaborative projects, such as those of the German Research Foundation and the Hessian funding program LOEWE, and holds leading positions, for example, as a member of the Board of the National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity ATHENE. She conducts research in programming languages and software engineering and was among the pioneers of machine learning techniques for automatic completion of programs. Prof. Dr. Mezini’s focus under the LOEWE Top Professorship will be research on programming foundations for the development of reliable and trustworthy decentralized interactive-learning software systems.
LOEWE Top Professorships allow excellent, internationally recognized researchers to receive between 1.5 and 3 million euros for five years to endow their professorship.
LOEWE Start Professorships are aimed at excellent scientists at an early stage of their career, who are awarded up to two million euros for a period of six years.
