Meet our academic staff from the School of Computing & Communications (LZSCC).
Dr Fabio Papacchini is an assistant Professor at the department of Computer Science at Lancaster University Leipzig. He received his PhD and a Doctoral Prize fellowship from the University of Manchester. He then moved to the University of Liverpool, where he worked on several research projects such as “Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear”, “UK Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Hub for Offshore Energy Asset Integrity Management”, and “Science of Sensor System Software”. His main research is in the area of non-classical logics in computer science. His research ranges from model theory, to understand the expressive power and limits of those logics, automated theorem proving, to design and implement formal methods techniques, and knowledge representation and reasoning, to apply those logics and techniques to fields such as ontological reasoning and formal verification.
Jie-Jun Hu-Bolz is an Assistant Professor in computing. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Max-Planck Institute for Human Development (Berlin) and the University of Essex (UK). Her research interests include incentive mechanisms design and game theory in various scenarios, such as IoT, mobile crowdsensing, SDN, blockchain, and large-scale dynamic systems. Her work primarily uses sophisticated mathematical methods to conceptualise multi-agent systems and investigate their complex dynamics. She has frequently published in IEEE Transactions. Currently, she is a PI of the EU-MSCA-SE Program.
James Stovold is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science. He completed his MEng and PhD in Computer Science with the York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis at the University of York. After returning to academia from industry in 2017, he has worked in a number of British institutions before joining LU Leipzig in 2022. His research interests centre around emergent behaviour and unconventional computing. In particular, he has interests in computing with biological and chemical matter and using modern computer science techniques to help understand biological and cognitive processes.
Amna Asif is an Engagement Lead and Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Lancaster University Leipzig. Her research focuses on critical areas such as disaster management, sustainability, and diversity. Her primary research interests include human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence. She has served as PI and Co-PI on successful research grants, including a consortium research grant for the TaaraSkillQuest project under the Unternehmen Revier program in Saxony, one of the pioneering external grants at Lancaster University Leipzig. Additionally, she has collaborated with IT companies to create a dynamic environment that fosters research, knowledge exchange, industry exposure, and student-industry collaborative projects, benefiting both colleagues and students.
Aakash Ahmad is currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Computing and Software Engineering at the School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University Leipzig, Germany. He earned his Ph.D. in Software Engineering from the School of Computing, Dublin City University, Ireland. With over 12 years of professional experience, Aakash has worked in diverse roles including software engineer, lecturer, postdoctoral researcher, and technology consultant across various institutions and organizations in Pakistan, Ireland, Denmark, and Saudi Arabia.
His research and development focus lies in the field of software engineering, with applications in mobile and quantum software systems. Aakash has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, with several appearing in top-tier (A and A+) ranked conferences and journals. He has supervised and co-supervised numerous master’s theses and one Ph.D. dissertation in the areas of mobile computing, cloud computing, and software architecture. Recently, Aakash secured research funding of €50K approx. to explore software engineering processes and architecture for the development of quantum software systems.
Dr Phillip Benachour
Visiting Senior Teaching Fellow in Computing and Communications, Lancaster University
Marco Caminati is an Assistant Professor Lancaster University Leipzig School of Computing and Communications, after having been an Associate Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of St Andrews and Principal Investigator of a four-year MRC-UKRI project. He does research at some spots at the frontier between Mathematics and Computer Science: using logic to combine proof assistants and constraint solvers to provide certified, correct-by-construction solutions to problems in high-stakes domains such as healthcare and finance; and taking advantage of computers to find new mathematical results and new proofs for existing ones, especially to make them amenable to full certification using formal methods.
Tianxiang Dai is an Assistant Professor in Cyber Security. He completed his Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.) with distinction in Computer Science at Fraunhofer SIT and TU Darmstadt, Germany. Prior to that, he obtained Ingénieur (M.Eng.) in Computer Science from Télécom ParisTech and Eurecom, France.
After returning to academia from industry, he worked in Barkhausen Institut Dresden as a postdoctoral researcher before joining LU Leipzig in 2025. His research interests include security measurements and evaluations on networked systems, such as the Internet infrastructures, the IoT systems, the cellular networks, etc. He is also interested in PETs (Privacy-Enhancing Technologies), e.g., Confidential Computing, Homomorphic Encryption, Multi-Party Computation, etc.
Christoph Jansen has been an Assistant Professor of Data Science at Lancaster University Leipzig since June 2024. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher and habilitation candidate at the Department of Statistics at LMU Munich. In his research, Christoph uses methods from decision and game theory as well as the theory of imprecise probabilities to make machine learning methods more reliable and robust to their implicit assumptions.
Tobias Meggendorfer is an Assistant Lecturer at Lancaster University Leipzig at the School of Computing & Communications. Previously, he was Post-Doc at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) / Chatterjee group (2022-2023), after obtaining his PhD (with distinction) at the Technical University Munich (TUM). His research focusses on various aspects of formal verification of probabilistic systems. In particular, he aims to establish a broader recognition for notions of risk in such systems and usage of risk-aware verification.
Dr David Georg Reichelt
Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Computer Science and Software Engineering
David Georg Reichelt is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Software Engineering at Lancaster University Leipzig. He joined from the computing center of Leipzig University, where he did his PhD and served as scientific staff. His main research interest is in the field of software performance engineering, where is examines how to identify and understand performance changes that happen during the software development lifecycle.
Thomas Schmid is a Lecturer in Computing at Lancaster University in Leipzig and a founding member of the LZSCC department. His research focuses on developing novel algorithms and applications for machine learning, deep learning and hybrid artificial intelligence. Thomas is chair and co-founder of the LEISYS conference, co-author of the book “Künstliche Intelligenz managen und verstehen” and engages frequently with international conferences and journals in the area of AI and medical applications of AI.
Dr Guido Schmitz
Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Computer Science, Cyber Security // Head of Department SCC Leipzig
Guido Schmitz joined Lancaster University Leipzig in 2024, enriching our academic team with his expertise in cyber security. His research is dedicated to developing innovative methodologies for rigorously scrutinising, improving, and verifying the security and privacy properties of modern interconnected IT systems. For example, through the application of formal methods, he has successfully identified and fixed severe vulnerabilities in core security protocols of the modern World Wide Web. Guido actively collaborates closely with esteemed standardisation organisations, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), to fortify critical infrastructures and establish robust formal guarantees for their security.
Throughout his academic journey, Guido has made remarkable achievements: He obtained his first-class Diplom degree (c.f. MSci) in Computer Science from the University of Trier as best of the cohort. Furthermore, he was awarded his PhD with distinction by the University of Stuttgart. He also played an integral role in setting up the Institute of Information Security at the University of Stuttgart, where he then held a Postdoctoral position. He continued to advance his career as a Lecturer in the world-renowned Information Security Group at Royal Holloway, University of London, before joining Lancaster University Leipzig as an Assistant Professor.
Neeraj Suri holds the Distinguished Professorship and Chair in Cybersecurity at Lancaster University (in UK and at Leipzig, Germany) where he co-directed the university-wide Lancaster Security Institute. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Dept. of CS at UMass-Amherst. Suri previously held the Chair Professorship on “Dependable Systems & Software” at TU Darmstadt, Germany. Following his PhD at UMass-Amherst, he has held positions at AlliedSignal/Honeywell Research, Boston Univ, Saab Endowed Chair Professorship, multiple sabbaticals at Microsoft Research, and visiting positions at the Univ of Texas at Austin, Academia Sincia, PolyU Hong Kong and Technion.
His research broadly spans the design, analysis, and assessment of trustworthy (dependable & secure) systems. His current focus is on a) Compositional Security, b) Robust and Secure ML and c) Secure Autonomous Systems including threat profiling and the quantification of security.
More details here.
Pascal Welke received his PhD with distinction from the University of Bonn. After a PostDoc there he moved to TU Wien before joining LU Leipzig in early 2025. In his research, Pascal investigates learning on and with graphs. In particular, he combines neural networks, graph mining, and graph theory to develop and analyze expressive graph representations, as well as efficient similarity based learning on graphs. He regularly publishes and participates in top ML conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, or AAAI and organizes workshops and regular seminars for the graph learning community.
Dr. James G. Wright has joined Lancaster Leipzig’s Computer Science department’s growing cybersecurity research group as an Assistant Professor. His research focuses on the development of new security properties and heterodox adversary models which are used to bolster the resilliance of IT communications protocols. His work is driven by the application domain of cyber-physical system security, which require special consideration when developing new security controls due to the additional constraints the systems’ safety properties. He has discovered vulnerabilities and developed novel security controls for 5G, power transmission, and railway protocols. He has additional interests in socio-technical system security, cyber exercise design, and critical technology studies.
After earning my BSc and MSc in Physics at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Fabio Di Nocera pursued a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, where I defended my thesis in April 2024.
His research focuses on the application of geometric methods to physics. This field is often referred to as Geometric Quantum Mechanics or Quantum Information Geometry.
His vision is that learning, communicating, and teaching are deeply interconnected activities, each reinforcing the others. This led him to become increasingly involved in teaching. Since January 2024, he has been working with Lancaster University Leipzig.
Originally from Jena, Germany, Robert moved to Leipzig to pursue his studies in Physics, later specializing in Mathematical Physics at Leipzig University. This international programme allowed him to study alongside peers from around the globe and deepened his appreciation for international collaboration in academia and research. During his studies, Robert actively volunteered to support international students, organizing and hosting welcome seminars and guiding them through German academia, student life, and the vibrant city of Leipzig.
Robert joined Lancaster University Leipzig in 2024 as an adjunct lecturer and began as Programme Lead for the Computer Science Pathway Programmes in 2025. In this role, he aims to coordinate curriculum delivery, advise students, and support their academic journey – reflecting his dedication to teaching and his commitment to fostering a welcoming environment for students from diverse international backgrounds.
Anas Metwally is an experienced software developer, educator, and entrepreneur with over 15 years of professional practice in game development, enterprise software, and startup management. He has held senior positions at Unity Technologies and Dassault Systèmes, focusing on technical architecture, consulting, and scalable solutions, and has led development teams in creating complex cross-platform systems. In addition, he cofounded a food tech startup, further broadening his applied experience in technology-driven innovation.
As a tutor at Lancaster University Leipzig, Anas teaches the foundations of operating systems, Linux, terminal commands, scripting, version control systems, and data storage. His teaching approach integrates storytelling and interactive methods to support student engagement and understanding.
Philipp Hunnekuhl has been the Subject Lead Skills & Languages at Lancaster University Leipzig since 2022. He was previously a Fellow of the German Research Foundation, and then Guest Professor of English, at the University of Hamburg. He completed his PhD at Queen Mary University of London in 2012 and has been a Visiting Fellow there since 2013. Dr Hunnekuhl has won research grants from the German Research Foundation, the British Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the University of Edinburgh. He holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from Goldsmiths, University of London and has worked as an adjunct lecturer at Goldsmiths, Queen Mary, and the Universities of Hamburg, Leipzig, and Erfurt.
Since 2013, Margot Hrabak has been teaching English and French all over the world, all ages, and all levels. Of Czech and Swiss origins, she was born in South Carolina. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Theatre and a Master’s degree in Cinematography, which she obtained at the Université Stendhal in France. She later became a certified teacher in Geneva. Afterwards, she moved to Thailand, where she taught both at Piriyalai High School and Anuban Phayao. The next step of her journey brought her to Australia, where she taught at Navitas Brisbane. She then decided to move to Germany where she has been working at numerous language schools and Leipzig University. She began her journey at Lancaster Leipzig when the campus opened in January 2020. Margot Hrabak has been a Fellow of Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) since 2023.
Macarena has been teaching English internationally since 2008. She was born in Montevideo, Uruguay where she got her first teaching certificate. She lived in Barcelona for over a decade where she got her bachelor’s degree in English studies and master’s degree in education. She then moved to Germany, where she is pursuing a PhD in Contemporary English Literature at Leipzig Universität. She began her journey at Lancaster Leipzig as an Adjunct Lecturer in October 2024.
Barbara Osnowski has been a German Tutor at Lancaster University Leipzig since 2023.
She completed a Master’s degree in Romance and Slavic languages and literature at the University of Greifswald in 1997 and a teaching certificate for German as a foreign language in 2003. Since 2021, she has also held a Bachelor of Education for German Studies and Art from the University of Nuremberg/Erlangen. Barbara Osnowski has been teaching German for over 20 years to learners of nearly all age groups and proficiency levels in international institutions, such as the Austrian Institute of Budapest, the American International School of Budapest, the International School of Erlangen, and the International School of Leipzig.
