idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Prof. Adi Akavia, an internationally recognized expert in applied cybersecurity, took up an ATHENE professorship at the Department of Computer Science at TU Darmstadt and the position as head of department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology SIT at the beginning of the year. The dual role combines cutting-edge academic research with practical application in a key area of cybersecurity.
Building bridges between theory and practice
Prof. Adi Akavia is one of the leading experts in applied cybersecurity research. She combines two currently particularly important areas of computer science: cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. How can machine learning, the basis of modern AI, be secured in such a way that confidentiality, data protection, and data sovereignty are maintained? With her research, Adi Akavia builds bridges between the theoretical foundations of cryptography and the practical application of AI. Her research has been applied in fields such as medicine and bioinformatics.
Adi Akavia has an excellent international network: after studying in Israel, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, she earned her doctorate at the renowned MIT in Boston under Prof. Shafi Goldwasser, one of the pioneers of modern cryptography. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton with Prof. Avi Wigderson, also a pioneer of modern cryptography and, like Shafi Goldwasser, a recipient of the Turing Award. After further research fellowships at Rutgers University and the Weizmann Institute of Science, she became a professor at the University of Haifa in 2018 and head of the biometrics research group at the Haifa Center for Cyber Law & Policy.
“I am very much looking forward to working with my new colleagues”, said Adi Akavia. “ATHENE and TU Darmstadt offer a unique environment for combining cutting-edge academic research with real impact in industry and society. There are few places in the world that can compete with Darmstadt in this regard.”
“I am delighted that we have recruited Professor Akavia, an internationally renowned expert in her field, to TU Darmstadt and thereby further strengthened the close ties between the university and ATHENE,” explained Prof. Tanja Brühl, President of TU Darmstadt. “With her innovative and forward-looking research, Adi Akavia will bolster our renowned field of information and intelligence research in the long term. At the same time, she will provide important impetus for interdisciplinary cooperation projects and practical applications by fruitfully combining artificial intelligence with cybersecurity issues.”
With Professor Adi Akavia, we are gaining an outstanding scientist who will help ATHENE further expand its leading role in German cybersecurity research and, in particular, strengthen its expertise at the intersection of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence,” says Prof. Michael Waidner, ATHENE CEO and head of Fraunhofer SIT. “The fact that we have been able to recruit such a renowned scientist underscores the international appeal of the location and the considerable attractiveness that Hesse and Germany enjoy abroad in our field of research.”
About ATHENE
ATHENE is Germany’s National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity. Established in 2019 by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the Hessian Ministry of Science and Research, Arts and Culture (HMWK), ATHENE is a research center of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft with its institutes SIT and IGD and with participation of Technical University of Darmstadt, Goethe University Frankfurt and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Today, ATHENE is Europe’s largest and leading research center for cybersecurity, conducting mission-driven, cutting-edge research that delivers measurable impact for government, industry and society.
Prof. Dr. Michael Waidner
f.l.t.r.: Prof. Dr. Michael Waidner, ATHENE | TU Darmstadt | Fraunhofer SIT; Prof. Dr. Adi Akavia, A ...
Source: Patrick Bal
Copyright: TU Darmstadt | Patrick Bal
Prof. Dr. Adi Akavia, ATHENE | TU Darmstadt | Fraunhofer SIT
Source: Patrick Bal
Copyright: TU Darmstadt | Patrick Bal
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars
Information technology
transregional, national
Miscellaneous scientific news/publications, Personnel announcements
English
f.l.t.r.: Prof. Dr. Michael Waidner, ATHENE | TU Darmstadt | Fraunhofer SIT; Prof. Dr. Adi Akavia, A ...
Source: Patrick Bal
Copyright: TU Darmstadt | Patrick Bal
Prof. Dr. Adi Akavia, ATHENE | TU Darmstadt | Fraunhofer SIT
Source: Patrick Bal
Copyright: TU Darmstadt | Patrick Bal
You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.
You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).
Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.
You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).
If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).
