News
ATHENE at the 'Nationale Konferenz IT-Sicherheitsforschung 2025'
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research is hosting the 'Nationale Konferenz IT-Sicherheitsforschung' in Berlin from March 17 to 19, 2025, with the theme “Cybersecurity and Democracy”. The conference will address key challenges such as AI-based disinformation, human-centered IT security, and quantum cryptography, bringing together leading experts from science, business, politics, and civil society. ATHENE will be represented in various program items.
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New at ATHENE: Prof. Gerd Griepentrog
Prof. Gerd Griepentrog has also been involved in ATHENE research since the beginning of the year. He is Head of the Department of Power Electronics and Drive Control at the TU Darmstadt, where he specialises in the interaction of power electronic converters with the electrical grid and the control of electrical machines. Together with his colleagues Prof. Florian Steinke and Prof. Björn Scheuermann, he is analysing the security of power converters in the new ATHENE project 'TrustedPowerCon', with the aim of developing improved protection mechanisms to ensure the resilience of the grid against cyber threats. We spoke to Professor Griepentrog about his research.
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New at ATHENE: Prof. Florian Steinke
Prof Florian Steinke is head of the Department of Energy Information Networks and Systems at TU Darmstadt. His research focuses on the applying algorithms and tools from machine learning, optimization, and control to energy management. He has also been involved in the ATHENE project since the beginning of 2025. In this interview, he talks about his (ATHENE) research and what he particularly appreciates about his work.
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Prof. Mira Mezini honored as ACM Fellow
Professor Mira Mezini, who represents TU Darmstadt on the ATHENE Board, has been inducted into the circle of ACM Fellows. She is now one of 55 outstanding scientists worldwide to be named an ACM Fellow by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2024. This award recognises their groundbreaking contributions to computer science and technology.
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New professorship for ATHENE scientist Naser Damer at TU Darmstadt
On 1 January 2025, Professor Dr Naser Damer took up the newly created chair of 'Biometrics, Human Analysis and Behaviour Understanding (BHABU)' at Darmstadt Technical University. He will focus on the important question of how biometrics can improve the usability of digital applications while enhancing IT security. Naser Damer has been a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics IGD for many years; the professorship is a joint appointment between TU Darmstadt and Fraunhofer IGD.
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Study "Ethics, law, and security of digital afterlife" published
New technologies such as AI enable people to live on after death in the form of digital representations (avatars) or chatbots. The digital afterlife industry, which offers such possibilities, is developing into a promising growth market. ATHENE researchers in computer science and law at Fraunhofer SIT and the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) at the University of Tübingen have analyzed the technical, legal, and ethical challenges of this development. In their study “Edilife – Ethics, Law, and Security of Digital Afterlife,” they provide a systematic overview of digital afterlife. The study can be downloaded free of charge here: www.sit.fraunhofer.de/edilife-studie.
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