December 3, 2020
Thomas Henzinger reappointed as President of IST Austria
Tom Henzinger accepts the offer to lead the Institute for a fourth four-year term. The Board of Trustees bases their decision on his achievements in the past and his plans for the future development of the Institute.
In their meeting on Monday, November 30th, the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) reappointed Prof. Thomas A. Henzinger for a fourth four-year term as President of the Institute. His new term of office will start on September 1, 2021.
Professor Henzinger, accepting to lead the Institute for another term, said: “The reappointment is a great honor for me. I am grateful and humbled by the confidence vested in me by the Board of Trustees. I am committed to continue doing my best also over the next few years, helping IST Austria to grow further and establish itself firmly in the international league of premier science institutions. As I also wish to return to full-time science myself, I have indicated to the Board that I do not plan to serve a full fourth term.”
Dr. Claus J. Raidl, chairman of the Board of Trustees thanked President Tom Henzinger for the excellent work in the past 12 years and for achieving such a unique and strong position as a basic research institute in the world: “IST Austria is a success story and we all can be proud of it.”
Scientific career and achievements
Thomas A. Henzinger was born in Linz, Austria. He received his diploma in Computer Science from Johannes Kepler University in Linz and a PhD degree in Computer Science from Stanford University (1991). He held prestigious positions around the world, including a directorship at the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrücken, Germany, a professorship of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a professorship of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California in Berkeley, USA.
In 2009, Thomas A. Henzinger was appointed the first president of IST Austria and has led the Institute to global success: During Henzinger’s presidency IST Austria was ranked world’s third top research institutions by Nature Index in June 2019 (normalized ranking).
Professor Henzinger’s research focuses on the design and verification of reliable software, hardware, and embedded systems. Besides many other distinctions, he received the Milner Award of the Royal Society, the Wittgenstein Award of the Austrian Science Fund, and an Advanced Investigator Grant of the European Research Council (ERC).
