Winners Young Researcher Award 2021
Once again this year, the "Young Researcher Award" (YRA for short) will be presented to outstanding students for their motivation and effort in the profile area of Information and Communication Technology. This year there were two renowned researchers who received this award: Jan Pennekamp and Peter Toth.
Jan Pennekamp
The winner of the doctoral student category is Jan Pennekamp. Pennekamp's dissertation project focuses on the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), security and privacy, and privacy-enhancing technologies. Industrial collaborations often have long supply chains that are characterized by confidentiality concerns, especially regarding in-house data. Therefore, his research content focuses on the application and evolution of confidential data considering real-world needs. With his research, he pursues the goal of being able to securely guarantee cooperation between various distrusting interest groups. In this way, Pennekamp makes an important contribution to confidential data processing in industry.
Jan Pennekamp earned his bachelor's degree in computer science at RWTH in 2014 and completed his master's degree in computer science in 2018, also at RWTH. Since 2018, he has been working on his PhD at the Chair of Communication and Distributed Systems (COMSYS for short) under the supervision of Professor Klaus Wehrle.
Jan Pennekamp receives 1,500 euros for his further research within the framework of the YRA. We congratulate him on this success!
Peter Toth
The winner of the category master student is Peter Toth. His master's thesis focuses on cryogenic cooling techniques, radar-based space debris detectors, and high-frequency receiver sensitivity enhancements. System blocks in noise sensitive applications for example radio astronomy, space debris detection or quantum computer hardware are expected to have a minimum of noise contributions. However, cyrogenic temperatures, which are required for stable operation, pose an enormous challenge for modern electronics. Therefore, his research content focuses on a temperature-controlled amplifier system equipped with programmable gain. During his research, Toth was able to achieve enormous error reductions and concludes his research with a measurement in the cryolab of the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques. Thus, Toth makes an important contribution in the dynamic field of scalability of quantum computers.
Peter Toth graduated in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering with a specialization in mirco- and nanotechnology. Since 2017, he has been pursuing a double master's degree at Keio University in Tokyo in integrated design engineering, and at RWTH University in electrical engineering. At the end of the year, Toth will complete his master's degree under the supervision of Professor Peter Knott.
We congratulate Peter Toth! He will also receive 1,500 euros for his research as part of the award.