Dr. Salomé Eriksson receives this year's faculty price of the Faculty of Science

Faculty of Science Prize Eriksson Schenker Mayor

Every year at Dies Academicus the faculties award prizes to young researchers for outstanding dissertations. This year's faculty prize of the Faculty of Science, donated by Adobe Research (Schweiz) AG, is awarded to Dr. Salomé Eriksson and Dr. Dasha Elena Nelidova. (Source: © Universität Basel)

Dr. Salomé Eriksson awarded the Faculty of Science Prize for her outstanding dissertation: "Certifying Planning Systems: Witnesses for Unsolvability." Her PhD thesis is pioneer work in the artificial intelligence (AI) research and will have a great impact on upcoming research work in the area of AI.

Her work researches how to increase trust in AI planning systems by certifying algorithms. These algorithms provide a witness which justifies their answer and can be verified independently. The certifying algorithms developed in this work are nearly as efficient as the best algorithms without certificates.

She is the first woman of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science who is awarded this prize.