Ulrik Brandes

Timeline

1. 1989–1994

   Computer science at Aachen

   He studies computer science, with a mathematics minor, at RWTH Aachen from 1989 to 1994. The thesis is Markov Random Fields as a Tool in Image Processing, written with advisor Walter Oberschelp. He spends the summer of 1992 as an exchange student at Michigan Technological University.

2. 1999

   A graph layout doctorate

   He completes a PhD at the University of Konstanz in 1999. Dorothea Wagner supervises the dissertation Layout of Graph Visualizations.

3. 1999–2003

   Fellowships and a habilitation

   He holds a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University with Roberto Tamassia in 1999 and another at the University of Sydney with Peter Eades in 2001. A habilitation in computer science follows in 2002. From 2002 to 2003 he is associate professor at the University of Passau.

4. 2001–2008

   Selected network publications

   He publishes A Faster Algorithm for Betweenness Centrality in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology in 2001. He and Thomas Erlebach edit Network Analysis: Methodological Foundations, Lecture Notes in Computer Science Tutorial, volume 3418, Springer-Verlag, in 2005. He publishes On Modularity Clustering with Daniel Delling, Marco Gaertler, Robert Görke, Martin Hoefer, Zoran Nikoloski, and Dorothea Wagner in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering in 2008.

5. 2003–2017

   Algorithmics professor at Konstanz

   He is professor for algorithmics at the University of Konstanz from 2003 to 2017. From 2012 to 2017 he is principal investigator of a DFG Reinhart Koselleck Project, and from 2013 to 2019 he is co-principal investigator of an ERC Synergy Project.

6. May 2017

   Full professor at ETH

   In May 2017 the ETH Board appoints Ulrik Brandes, born in 1968, full professor of social networks. He is a professor at the University of Konstanz at the time of the appointment. The Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences strengthens computational social science, and his research concerns the methodological principles of network research and their application to social networks.

7. 2024

   The Simmel Award

   He receives the Simmel Award in 2024 as the keynote speaker at Sunbelt XLIV in Edinburgh.

8. August 2024–July 2027

   Professor and department head

   He is full professor of social networks and head of the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences at ETH Zurich. He chairs the department leadership from August 2024 to July 2027.