Education

1972

Graduation from Max-Planck Gymnasium, Delmenhorst (summa cum laude)

1972 - 1977

Student of Computer Science (Major)  and Theoretical  Linguistics (2nd Major)  at the University of Hamburg, Germany

1977

Diploma degree in Computer Science/Theoretical Linguistics at the University of Hamburg (summa cum laude)

1981

Doctorate in Computer Science at the University of Hamburg (summa cum laude)

Professional Experience

1978 - 1981

Postdoctoral Research Associate in the project HAM-RPM at the University of Hamburg (Principal Investigator: Prof. W. v.Hahn)

1981 - 1993

Project Leader and Principal Investigator of the project HAM-ANS at the University of Hamburg

1982

Tenured Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Saarland University, Saarbrücken

1984 - present

Tenured Full Professor of Computer Science at the Saarland University, Saarbrücken

1984

Full Professorship at the University of Karlsruhe offered, declined

1985

Full Professorship at the University of Hamburg offered, declined

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 - present

Scientific Director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) in Saarbrücken

1992 - 2000

Member of the Executive Board of the Post-Graduate College on Cognitive Science of the German Research Foundation (DFG)

1993 - 2000

Scientific Director and Principal Investigator of the Verbmobil Project on speech-to-speech translation

1996 - present

Director and CEO of the German Research Center for Artificial  Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) in Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern

1996 - present

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 - present

Joint Appointment in the Department of Computational Linguistics at the Saarland University, Saarbrücken

2001 - present

Member of the Executive Board of the International Post-Graduate College in Language Technology and Cognitive Systems as a cooperation between Saarland University (Departments of Computational Linguistics, Phonetics, and Computer Science) and the University of Edinburgh (School of Informatics) of the German Research Foundation (DFG)

2004 - present

Scientific Director of the SmartWeb Consortium on mobile multimodal access to semantic web services 

Honors and Awards (Selection)

1972 - 1977

Scholarship of the German National Merit Foundation, that is granted to 0.25% of the German student population  (http://www.studienstiftung.org/)

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

Elected Full Member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina

2004

Appointed Saarland Ambassador by Prime Minister Peter Müller

2004

GI Fellow (German Informatics Association) elected for "outstanding interdisciplinary contributions to computer science, linguistics, and psychology"

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

2005

Appointed as Spokesman of the Saarland Ambassadors 

2008

Elected Full Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin  

Professional Activities (Selection)

1982

Program Chair of the 6th German Conference on AI, GWAI-82, Bad Honnef

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

1991

Chair of the Association of German AI Institutions

1992

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

2003

Program Co-Chair of the Fifth International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces (ICMI), Vancouver

2005

Program Co-Chair of the International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN), Madonna di Campiligio