High-profile basic research centers and an attractive research environment are some of the reasons why the PhD students at the Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University have a tremendous success. Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University has succeeded in creating a productive environment for the many PhD students. An environment that provides promising young minds a good start to an academic career and which has just secured two PhD Students prestigious awards.

2011.10.26

Best Paper Awards
Kasper Green Larsen has just received a Best Student Paper Award for his research into "lower bounds" for data structure problems. Kasper is a PhD student at the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Massive Data Algorithmics (MADALGO) at the Department of Computer Science, but is currently on an extended stay at the prestigious Princeton University in the USA. The prize, named "the Machtey Award", is awarded annually to the best research paper at the FOCS conference (IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science) which is written entirely by students. FOCS and the sister conference STOC (ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing), are the two highest-ranked conferences in theoretical computer science.

- It is obviously a great honor for me to receive the award. It means that my research field thinks that my research is of importance. It's a good feeling that inspires me to work even harder to solve the fundamental problems within data structures, says Kasper Green Larsen.

- In practice, it is also a huge boost to my career as researchers around the world will pay more attention to me. It will probably make it easier for me to establish my own strong network of partners around the world. I hope that with the price I will one day be able to give students similar opportunities, he says.

Not long ago Kasper Green Larsen’s  PhD student colleague at the Department of Computer Science, Thomas Dueholm Hansen from the Center for the Theory of Interactive Computation at Aarhus University (CTICS), received the Best Paper Award at STOC.

Attract and restrain PhD students
According to Kasper Green Larsen's supervisor, Professor and Head of MADALGO Lars Arge, an environment with strong and high profile centers is important to be able to attract qualified students:

- We are able to restrain those who might otherwise go elsewhere, he explains.

At the same time it is important for students to collaborate with colleagues internationally. As mentioned earlier, Kasper is currently visiting Princeton University, as part of his PhD studies. The stay abroad is a result of Lars Arge’s strong and global network, says Kasper Green Larsen.

- Princeton has one of the world's leading research groups within data structures, including a recipient of the Turing Award, which is said to be computer science’s answer to the Nobel Prize. It is the absolute best place in the world for me to spend time during my stay abroad. It's been very exciting so far and it's a unique chance to establish a strong international network.

Good environment for future leaders

It is important to offer a good environment for PhD students.

- MADALGO and other strong researchers at Computer Science are able to obtain large research grants. With such funding, it is possible to launch many activities, which together can create the strong and international environment at MADALGO and at the Institute, says Else Magård, center manager at MADALGO.

The department employs a large number of talented international postdoc's, hosts  international conferences and workshops, and hosts numerous international research visitors. A good example of one of the activities is CTICS's recent hosting of the prestigious "China Theory Week" workshop for the first time held outside China. The workshop only invites the most promising international PhD students in theoretical computer science and thus helps to enhance the environment at the Department of Computer Science.