Prof. Dr. Bela Gipp

BIOGRAPHY

Prof. Bela Gipp (Dr.-Ing.) is Chair of the Data & Knowledge Engineering Group at the University of Wuppertal since August 2018. His research interests lie at the intersection of Information Science and Data Science. The primary research of his group focuses on methods for the retrieval, analysis and visualization of information in large datasets. The implications of blockchain technology – for the benefit of both industry and society – is another research domain Bela is passionate about.

Previously, Bela held a junior professorship at the University of Konstanz, where he led the Information Science Group from February 2015 - August 2018. He completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science (summa cum laude) at the University of Magdeburg in 2013. The majority of his doctoral research was conducted abroad, while on a 4-year research appointment at the University of California Berkeley. While at UC Berkeley, he made also use of the proximity to the Silicon Valley to found the tech start-up SciPlore and co-found Docear. After his Ph.D., he received postdoctoral research fellowships at U.C. Berkeley and at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo.

In his youth, he participated in Jugend Forscht, Germany’s premier youth science competition. After winning 1st place at the state-level competition three times, he was honored by the German Chancellor and Germany’s Federal President. Today, he is involved as a jury member and mentor for Jugend Forscht. 

Bela has published over 100 peer-reviewed conference papers and journal articles, in addition to three books and several patents. His publications have received over 3,500 citations (h-index> 30). Currently, he is the head of several DFG-funded research projects and is a member of the DFG Graduate School 2196 Dokument - Text - Edition. Additionally, he maintains active research collaborations with industry. For example, he founded and is the acting CIO of the OriginStamp AG based in Switzerland.

Bela serves as a board member of the Interdisciplinary Center for Machine Learning and Data Analytics in Wuppertal. He is also on the board of the University Association for Information Science, and is a member of the scientific advisory board for the DAAD Program offering International Research Stays for Computer Scientists.

In his spare time, Bela is an ambitious nature photographer and loves to paraglide in the Alps.