The internationally renowned computer scientist and mathematician, Dimitris Simos, will take up the professorship for cyber security at the University of Salzburg and the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences (FH Salzburg) in July 2025. The overarching endowed professorship, which was initiated as part of the EXDIGIT project and is anchored at both higher education institutions, will offer a future-oriented focus in research and teaching.
"The professorship will build bridges between scientific foundations and application areas, which will strengthen the importance of cybersecurity for the participating educational institutions and the entire region by integrating basic university research with applied research across institutions. This makes it possible to combine cutting-edge research in mathematics/computer science with current cybersecurity challenges and make a sustainable contribution to Salzburg's innovation landscape," says the expert in discrete mathematics, software testing and cybersecurity.
Dimitris Simos has already held outstanding positions in research, including as a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the USA, as a senior researcher at the COMET Centre SBA Research in Vienna and as the Austrian Science and Technology Representative to the United Nations for Disaster and Risk Management. With over 150 publications, he is one of the leading voices in the field of secure systems.
Simos teaches courses at both institutions in English and conducts research projects on cyber security in his interdisciplinary working group.
Innovative collaboration between the University of Salzburg and Salzburg University of Applied Sciences
The province of Salzburg is building up a field of strength in the area of cyber security, with the state foundation professorship being a flagship project for expanding this expertise. In addition to research and education, targeted measures are also being promoted to support companies and start-ups in this area and to master the challenges that are visible on a daily basis. The implementation of the WISS science and innovation strategy of the state of Salzburg is thus being consistently continued.
The University of Salzburg and the University of Applied Sciences have a long-standing and diverse partnership, which has now been recognised with a unique joint professorship in a future-oriented field. Generously funded by the WISS programme of the state of Salzburg, this enables the strengths of both institutions to be combined and further developed.