Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster

Work Positions

• 1978 - 1982 Postdoctoral Research Associate in the project HAM-RPM at the University of Hamburg
• 1982 - 2018 Professor of Computer Science at Saarland University, Saarbrücken
• 1985 - 1995 Member of the Executive Board of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 314) “Artificial Intelligence Knowledge-based Systems” of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
• 1987 Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and first visitor of the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), Berkeley
• 1988 - 2019 Scientific Director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) in Saarbrücken
• 1993 - 2000 Scientific Director and Principal Investigator of the Verbmobil Project on speech-to-speech translation
• 1996 - 2019 Director and CEO of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) in Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern
• 1996 - 2007 Member of the Executive Board of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB 378) “Resource-adaptive Cognitive Processes” of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
• 1999 - 2003 Scientific Director and Principal Investigator of the SmartKom Project Consortium on intelligent multimodal dialog systems
• 2000 - 2018 Joint Appointment as a Professor in the Department of Computational Linguistics at Saarland University, Saarbrücken
• 2007 - 2018 Member of the Board of the Cluster of Excellence on Multimodal Computing and Interaction, Saarbrücken, Germany
• 2009 - 2018 German Academic Representative on the Executive Steering Board of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) ICT Labs, Brussels, Belgium
• 2009 - present Member of the Strategy Board of the Leading-Edge Cluster Software Innovations for Digital Enterprises

• 1972 - 1977Scholarship of the German National Merit Foundation, that is granted to 0.25% of the German student population
• 1991 Fritz Winter Award for seminal technical contributions to natural language dialog systems
• 1993 AAAI Fellow, elected for pioneering work in the development of dialog systems, and outstanding service to the artificial intelligence community
• 1995 Information Technology European Award for “WIP a plan-based generation system for adaptive multimedia presentations”
• 1998 Degree of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Institute of Technology at Linkoeping University, Sweden
• 1999 ECCAI Fellow, elected for significant and sustained contributions to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) in Europe
• 2000 Karl Heinz Beckurts Award for pioneering and sustained scientific contributions to language technology and intelligent user interfaces and for the transfer of these results into industrial applications”
• 2001 Second Honorary Doctorate from Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany
• 2001 2001 German Future Prize – German’s highest scientific prize -, presented by the President of Germany, Dr. Johannes Rau for outstanding innovations in language technology and intelligent user interfaces
• 2002 Second German Computer Scientist elected Full Member of the German Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz
• 2003 First German computer scientist elected Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm
• 2004 Appointed Saarland Ambassador by Prime Minister Peter Müller
• 2004 Elected Full Member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina
• 2004 Elected Full Member of Acatech, the Council for Engineering Sciences at the Union of the German Academies of Science and Humanities
• 2004 Inclusion on the “Wall of Fame for Pioneers of Computer Technology” at HNF, the world’s largest computer museum, one of the four AI scientists featured on the electronic wall
• 2004 GI Fellow (German Informatics Association) elected for “outstanding interdisciplinary contributions to computer science, linguistics, and psychology”
• 2005 Appointed as Spokesman of the Saarland Ambassadors
• 2005 Elected Member of the Wall of Fame: Pioneers of IT, Computer Museum HNF, Paderborn
• 2006 Recipient of the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class, the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by President of Germany
• 2007 Elected Honorary Member of the Institute for Information Technology OFFIS, Oldenburg
• 2008 Elected Full Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Leibniz Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), Berlin
• 2010 Elected Honorary Member of the GFFT for Outstanding Achievements in Research Transfer, Darmstadt, Germany
• 2012 Eagle of Saint Venceslao Award, the highest recognition given by the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy
• 2013 Recipient of the Donald E. Walker Distinguished Service Award of the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence for his substantial contributions, as well as his extensive service to the field of Artificial Intelligence throughout his career
• 2014 Elected in the Hall of Fame of “the Leading Personalities in IT” of the magazine Computerwoche
• 2015 Third Honorary Doctorate from Maastricht University, The Netherlands
• 2016 Recipient of the ICMI Sustained Accomplishment Award of the ACM
• 2017 Recipient of the Saarland Order of Merit
• 2017 Recipient of a Endowed Professorship by the Johannes Gutenberg Foundation
• 2018 Honorary Citizenship of the City of Saarbrücken

• 1984 - 1985 Department Chair, Department of Computer Science, Saarland, Saarbrücken
• 1986 - 1988 Chair of the German AI Association (GI/KI)
• 1991 - 1993 Chair of the Board of Trustees of IJCAII, International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence
• 1992 - 2021 Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the OFFIS Institute at the University of Oldenburg
• 1993 General Chair of IJCAI-93, Chambery, France
• 1996 Program Chair of the European Conference on AI, ECAI-96, Budapest
• 1996 - 2000 Chair of ECCAI, the European Coordination Committee for Artificial Intelligence
• 1997 Program Co-Chair of the ACL/EACL Conference, Madrid
• 2000 President of the Association for Computational Linguistics
• 2002 - heute Trustee of the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI); Berkeley, USA
• 2003 - 2011 Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Trento-Haifa Collaboration between the Caesarea Rothschild Institute and ITC-irst, Haifa, Israel
• 2003 - 2009 Member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Alberta Ingenuity Center for Machine Learning at the Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
• 2003 - 2010 German Representative of the Highest Advisory Panel for Computer Science/IT Funding Programs, the ISTAG Information Society Technologies Advisory Group of the European Commission
• 2003 Program Co-Chair of the Fifth International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces (ICMI), Vancouver
• 2004 - 2014 Member of the International ICT Research Advisory Board of Alberta (IRAC), Canada
• 2004 - 2014 Member of the Advisory Board of the International ACM Conference on Multimodal Interfaces (ICMI)
• 2005 Program Co-Chair of the International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN), Madonna di Campiligio
• 2006 - 2014 Germany’s Chief Academic Advisor for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the Research Union of the German Government under Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel
• 2007 - today Member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, Japan
• 2007 Chair of the Jury for the European ICT Prize of the European Commission
• 2008 - 2014 Member of the SAP Next Business & Technology Advisory Board
• 2008 - 2010 Member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), SIMTech, Singapore
• 2008 - 2020 Member of the University Council of the University of Hamburg
• 2008 - 2012 Chair of the Technology and Innovation Council (TIR) of the Berlin Senate
• 2009 - 2011 Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Center for Advanced Security Research (CASED), Darmstadt, Germany
• 2009 - 2017 Member of the Governance Board of the Intel Visual Computing Institute
• 2009 - 2017 Member of the Executive Steering Board of EIT Digital in the European Institute of Innovation and Technology
• 2011 - 2014 Member of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), Trento, Italy
• 2012 - heute Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Future Internet Public-Private Partnership of European Commission
• 2014 - heute Chair of the International Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Tokyo, Japan
• 2015 Member of the Peer Review Committee for Informatics Departments at all Dutch Universities
• 2015 Member of the International Advisory Board of the Collaborative Graduate Program in Design at the Kyoto University Design School, Kyoto, Japan
• 2015 - heute Chair of the International Advisory Board (IAB) of the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, Japan
• 2016 - 2020 Member of the University Council of TU Darmstadt
• 2016 - 2020 Member of the International Advisory Board of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics, Prague, Czech Republic
• 2016 - heute Member of the Digitalization Advisory Board of the Prime Minister of the Saarland
• 2016 - 2020 Member of the Advisory Board of the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) Europe
• 2016 - 2019 Member of the Board of Advisors of the Brightland Business Intelligence and Smart Service Institute (BISS) in Heerlen, the Netherlands
• 2017 - 2018 President of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (GDNÄ), est. 1822
• 2017 - heute Member of the Steering Committee of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Platform Learning Systems
• 2017 - heute Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF), Berlin
• 2017 - heute Member of the High Level International Committee for Collaborative Laboratories of FCT, Lisbon, Portugal
• 2018 - heute Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Technology Center Research Institute, China
• 2018 - 2019 Member of the Data Ethics Commission of the German Government
• 2018 - Member of the Enquêtekommission of the State Parliament of Saarland „Digitalisierung im Saarland – Bestandsaufnahme, Chancen und Maßnahmen”, Saarbrücken