Richard Mayr

We are pleased to announce that Richard Mayr will be joining Informatics in October, as a lecturer.

Richard received his MSc in Computer Science from the TU-Müunchen, Germany, in 1994. In 1998 he obtained his PhD in Formal Methods (Model Checking Infinite-State Systems) from the TU-München, Germany.

During postdoctoral stints at the University of Edinburgh (UK) in 1999 and the University Paris 7 (France) in 2000, he worked on semantic equivalences. He joined the Department of Computer Science at the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 2001. There he extended his research area to infinite real-time and probabilistic systems and received a postdoctoral degree ("Habilitation") in 2002.

In 2004 he moved to Raleigh, NC, USA, to join the department of Computer Science at NC State University as assistant professor.

His current research interests include Petri nets and process algebra, model checking and semantic equivalences, efficient algorithms for the verification of real-time and probabilistic systems, Markov chains, Markov reward models and stochastic games.

Amin Coja-Oghlan

I am pleased to announce that Dr.Amin Coja-Oghlan will be joining the School as a Reader in October this year. He is currently supported by a Heisenberg advanced researcher fellowship awarded by the German research foundation.

Amin received his MSc in Mathematics from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, in 1999. In 2001 he obtained his PhD in Probability Theory from the University of Hamburg, Germany, where he also graduated with an MSc in Computer Science in 2003.

In 2001 Coja-Oghlan joined the Algorithms and Complexity group at Humboldt University, Berlin, as a postdoc. Since then, his research has been focused on probabilistic methods in computer science -- particularly on the use of randomness in the design and analysis of algorithms. In 2005 he received a postdoctoral degree ("Habilitation") at Humboldt, where from 2003 until 2006 he held a temporary professorship. In 2007 he moved to Pittsburgh, PA, USA, to hold his Heisenberg fellowship as a visiting research scholar at Carnegie Mellon University.

His current research interests include the use of spectral techniques and semidefinite programming in algorithm design as well as the impact of concepts from statistical physics on computer science.