Meet our academic staff from the School of Computing & Communications (LZSCC).
Dr Fabio Papacchini
Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Computer Science // Head of Department SCC Leipzig
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Dr Phillip Benachour
Visiting Senior Teaching Fellow in Computing and Communications, Lancaster University
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.
