This year, I will leave Saarland University, where I have been professor for software engineering for 16 years. Our CISPA Center for IT Security is about to segregate from Saarland University to become a Helmholtz Center, and I will be moving with it.
With base funding for 500 researchers, the new Helmholtz Center is set to become one of the largest research institutions in IT security – and hopefully one of the most renowned, too. The recent research of my group in program analysis and test generation (watch out for papers this year!) positions us right at the intersection of software engineering and security, and I will be happy to contribute both to the research agenda as to the management of CISPA. I will retain a footprint at Saarland University, though, keeping my professor title and reduced teaching obligations.
While the label on my office will change, my loyalty to the Saarland Informatics Campus will not falter the slightest. I am grateful to work in one of the greatest research environments that could possibly exist, surrounded by colleagues who have proven their incredible excellence again and again, and who all work together every day for the excellence of the site as a whole. When I started 16 years ago, we were maybe 15 professors in Computer Science; when I retire, there will be ten times as many.
This great environment can be your environment, too. If your work is related to IT security, please check out our tenure-track and tenured career options at CISPA. If your work is in Software Engineering, though, the call for my successor (German / English) is open as well. It has been one of the best positions I could ever think of, and I am sure it could be the same for you!
