Our people
Steering committee
DI Dr.
Hans-Peter Bernhard
Silicon Austria Labs & Johannes Kepler University Linz
Hans-Peter Bernhard is coordinating the SAL-DC and head of SAL Research Unit Wireless Communications. He works in the area wireless factory communications and signal processing. Additionally, he is senior scientist at the Institute of Communications Engineering and RF-Systems of the Johannes Kepler University Linz.
Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Inf. Univ. Dr.Rer.Nat.
Marcel Baunach
Graz University of Technology (TU Graz)
Marcel Baunach is Professor for Embedded Automotive Systems at the Institute of Technical Informatics at Graz University of Technology. With expertise in Wireless Sensor/Actuator Networks and as a former head of hardware development in the field of Automotive Diagnostics, he researches compositional hardware/software co-design with a focus on real-time operating systems, processor architectures and self-organizing wireless communication in highly dependable embedded systems for e.g. future vehicles, the Internet of Things or cyber-physical systems.
Univ.-Prof. DI Dr.
Bernhard Rinner
Alpen Adria Universität Klagenfurt
Bernhard Rinner is a Professor of pervasive computing and the Deputy Head of the Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems, University of Klagenfurt, Austria. His current research interests include sensor networks, multirobot systems, self-organization, and pervasive computing.
Univ.-Prof. DI Dr.
Alois Zoitl
Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
Alois Zoitl is Professor for cyber-physical systems for engineering and production at the LIT CPS Lab of the Johannes Kepler University, Linz. His research interests are on flexible adaptive production systems, highly distributed control and software engineering methods for theses systems.
SAL-DC board
Supervising faculty members
Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn.
Bernhard K. Aichernig
Graz University of Technology (TU Graz)
Bernhard K. Aichernig and his research group investigate the foundations of software engineering for realizing dependable computer-based systems. Bernhard is an expert in formal methods and testing. His research covers a variety of areas combining falsification, verification and abstraction techniques. Current topics include the Internet of Things, test-case generation, model learning, and statistical model checking. Further details: https://aichernig.blogspot.com
Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn.
Bernd Deutschmann
Graz University of Technology (TU Graz)
Dr. Bernd Deutschmann has received his M.Sc. degree and the Ph.D. degree in telecommunication engineering from the Graz University of Technology, Austria, in 1999 and 2002, respectively. Between 2000 and 2006, he was with austriamicrosystems AG/Austria, as a Senior EMC task force engineer. From 2006 to 2013, he held the position of Senior Staff EMC Expert with Infineon Technologies AG in Munich/Germany. He is currently a Full Professor with the Graz University of Technology/Austria, as the head of the Institute of Electronics. His research interests include EMC design for integrated circuits, power electronics, and EMC simulation and measurement techniques. During his research activities, he has applied for several patents and has authored and coauthored numerous papers and technical articles in the field of electromagnetic compatibility of integrated circuits.
Ass.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. BSc.
Jasmin Grosinger
Graz University of Technology (TU Graz)
Jasmin Grosinger represents the area of Ultra-Low Power Microwave Components and Systems in research and teaching as an Assistant Professor (with tenure track to a position as Associate Professor) at the Faculty of Electrical and Information Engineering at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). Her Professorship on Ultra-Low Power Microwave Components and Systems is allocated at the Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering at TU Graz, at which she is am working since 2013 establishing and managing a research group in this area. The aim of her research is the development of dependable sensor and communication technologies for the next generation of wireless sensor systems.
Univ.-Prof. Dr.
Sepp Hochreiter
Johannes Kepler University Linz
The Institute for Machine Learning’s and Prof. Dr. Sepp Hochreiters’ research focus: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Long Short-Term Memory, Reinforcement Learning, Vision, Representational Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Bioinformatics (Genetics, Genomics).
Univ.-Prof. DI Dr.
Mario Huemer
Johannes Kepler University Linz
The Institute of Signal Processing (ISP), Prof. Mario Huemer focuses on the algorithmic-, architectural- and hardware-oriented aspects of signal processing systems. Application areas are information and communication systems, radio frequency and baseband integrated circuits, bio- and sensor-signal processing as well as automotive applications. Our vision is to work on both long term fundamental research projects as well as on short term topics, the latter in close cooperation with industry partners.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. techn. Dr. h.c.
Manfred Kaltenbacher
Graz University of Technology (TU Graz)
Manfred Kaltenbacher is professor for theory, modelling and numerical simulation of electromagnetic fields and head of the Institute of Fundamentals and Theory in Electrical Engineering at Graz University of Technology, Austria. Main research directions are numerical simulation and optimization as well as model order reduction techniques for multi-physical fields (electromagnetic fields coupled to mechanical, thermal and acoustic fields) using the Finite Element Method. Main applications range from MEMS sensors and actuators to antennas for HF- and UHF-RFID systems, non-linearly loaded NFC antennas, HF cables and connectors as well as shielding structures.
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Annette Mütze
Graz University of Technology (TU Graz)
Annette Muetze is a professor for Electric Drives and Machines. She heads the institute with the same name at TU Graz, as well as the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Brushless Drives for Pump and Fan Applications. Her research interests focus on increasing the reliability, efficiency, and utilization of variable speed drive systems by addressing the interaction between the different components of the system.
Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn.
Thomas Pock
Graz University of Technology (TU Graz)
Thomas Pock leads the vision, learning, and optimization group at the Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision at Graz University of Technology. The focus of his research is image processing, computer vision, inverse problems, convex and non-smooth optimization, and machine learning. For more information see https://www.tugraz.at/institutes/icg/research/team-pock
Univ.-Prof. DI Dr.
Harald Pretl
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Harald Pretl is professor for integrated circuits, and heads the energy-efficient analog circuits and systems group at Johannes Kepler University Linz. His research interests span a wide range from low-power RF to high-performance cellular, and microwave to mm wave frequencies. The research is centred around RFIC implementations, and touches analog and mixed-signal aspects as well.
Univ.-Prof. DI Dr.
Andreas Springer
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Andreas Springer is professor for communications engineering and heads the Communications Engineering Group at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. His research interests are several aspects of wireless communications. One research focus is the use of wireless sensor networks for industrial applications in which aspects like real-time, reliability, security, safety and localization of sensor nodes are important. Another line of research are digitally assisted transceivers for wireless communications.
Univ.-Prof. DI Dr.
Andreas Stelzer
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Andreas Stelzer is Full Professor with Johannes Kepler University Linz, where he is currently the Head of the Department for RF-Systems. His current research interests include microwave sensor systems for industrial and automotive applications, integrated radar sensor concepts, SiGe-based circuit design, microwave packaging in eWLB, RF, and microwave subsystems, surface acoustic wave sensor systems and applications, and digital signal processing for sensor signal evaluation.
PhD students
Fatemeh Abbassi
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Fatemeh received her Bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Iran and her Master’s in electrical engineering (Microelectronics) from the Sharif University of Technology, Iran. She worked as a research assistant in the School of Information and Communication Engineering at the IC Lab, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea before she joined SAL. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. degree in collaboration with the Institute for Integrated Circuits, Johannes Kepler University in Linz. Her research interests include the analysis, design, and optimization of the analog and radio frequency integrated circuits for 5G applications with a special focus on RF receiver front end using Analog Generator.
Stefan Baumgartner
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Stefan studied Electronics and Information Technology at Johannes Kepler University Linz, where he obtained his Dipl.-Ing. degree. Besides, he worked part-time at the Linz Center of Mechatronics (LCM). During his studies, he specialized in signal and information processing and wrote his Master’s thesis on “Neural Network Based Data Estimation”. Since 2021, he is a member of the Institute of Signal Processing at JKU, where he is working towards his Ph.D. in the JKU-LIT-SAL embedded Signal Processing and Machine Learning (eSPML) lab. The aim of his research work is to develop machine learning approaches for wireless communications engineering which enhance or substitute traditional signal processing methods.
Zhou Da
Roma Tre University
Zhou obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in China and his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering in the direction of biomedical engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. He joined SAL in 2022 as a junior scientist, working on the topic of phased array piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducer (pMUT) in intravascular ultrasound imaging. He has experience in circuit design, k-Wave simulation and characterization of ultrasonic transducers, as well as ultrasound imaging reconstruction.
Richard Fischbacher
Graz University of Technology
Richard received the MSc degree in electrical engineering at Graz University of Technology. Since 2018, he has been pursuing his PhD at the Institute of Microwave and Photonic at the Graz University of Technology. His master’s thesis examined the capacitive coupling between a co-planar parallel-plate capacitor and an HF RFID coil antenna. Since 2018, he has been a Project Assistant at the Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering, Graz University of Technology. His current research interests include RFID and WPT technologies. Here, he is specifically interested in modeling coil antennas in a circuit-level environment and the interoperability of NFC and WPT.
Mehdi Gholizadeh
Graz University of Technology
Mehdi received M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the department of electrical engineering at the Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2018. Since 2020, he has been a PhD student at the Institute of Electronics, TU Graz, Austria. His current research interests include EMC in power electronic, different NF scanning methods, and numerical simulations.
Diego Gigena Ivanovich
Universidad Nacional del Sur
Diego, is from Argentina where he studied electronic engineering and afterwards pursued a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Pedro Julian, that is currently in progress. In 2021, he joined SAL where he is continuing his scientific work in the field of Embedded AI.
His main line of work is the design of digital hardware for neural network processing. He has experience in implementing and training networks in software using PyTorch, as well as digital design using hardware description languages like SystemVerilog.
Armin Hadžiaganović
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Armin completed his Bachelor’s and his Master’s in telecommunication engineering at the University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzigovina. He worked as a software engineer and worked on different projects related to the healthcare IT industry where he crafted his agile software development skills. In 2020 he joined Silicon Austria Labs GmbH, Linz, Austria as a Junior Scientist in the Wireless Communications group. Soon after, he enrolled in PhD studies at Johannes Kepler University in Linz (JKU) under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Springer where he is conducting scientific work in the area of industrial wireless communications.
Simon Heinig
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Simon received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany, in 2017 and 2019, respectively. In 2020 he joined the Institute for Communications Engineering and RF Systems, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria as a Research Assistant, where he is working in the joint SAL-Linz Institute of Technology (LIT) Millimeter-Wave Lab towards his PhD. His research focusses on the calibration and verification of imaging radars and the development of digital radar systems.
Markus Hofmarcher
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Markus studied Business Informatics at Johannes Kepler University Linz but also got interested in Bioinformatics and Machine Learning during his masters. Afterwards, he started his PhD at the Institute for Bioinformatics, which is now the Institute for Machine Learning. He worked in multiple fields, such as computational perception for autonomous driving or drug design and reinforcement learning with a focus on learning algorithms for sparse reward environments.
Christian Huber
Johannes Kepler University Linz
After studying Computer Science at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Christian started his PhD studies at the Institute for Machine Learning, headed by Prof. Sepp Hochreiter. There, he worked on multiple projects focused on visual perception for self-driving cars. His research interests are neural networks and deep learning algorithms. He specialized himslef on Convolutional neural networks.
Julian Karoliny
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Julian received his Bachelor’s degree and Dipl. Ing. (M.Sc. equivalent) degree in Mechatronics from the Johannes Kepler University Linz. From 2020, he is with SAL as a Junior Scientist where he is part of the Wireless Communications group and works on the Intelligent Secure Trustable Things (InSecTT) Project. In cooperation with the SAL Doctoral College (SAL-DC) he is currently pursuing the Dr.Tech. degree (Ph.D. equivalent) with the Johannes Kepler University in Linz (JKU), under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Springer. His research interests include wireless sensor networks, signal processing, and machine learning.
Robin Kaufhold
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Robin completed his Bachelor’s degree in Microsystemstechnology at the University of Applied Science in Berlin and finished his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. During his studies, he also worked at the Fraunhofer IZM in Berlin on inkjet printable sensor applications. He joined Silicon Austria Labs for his master’s thesis “Developing printing processes on an electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printer for advanced heterogeneous structures” and is pursuing his research on the novel multi-nozzle MEMS-based EHD printer for the additive manufacturing of nanoparticle materials with submicrometer resolution in the framework of a doctoral thesis in cooperation with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
Alexander Kemptner
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Alexander studied Mobile Computing for his Bachelor’s, and Embedded Systems Design for his Master’s degree at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria in Hagenberg. During his studies, he worked as a software engineer for embedded systems. He joined SAL in 2022 as a Junior Scientist in the Wireless Communications Unit and is currently pursuing this Ph.D. at Johannes Kepler University in Linz (JKU) under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Springer.
Samuel Kvasnicka
Graz University of Technology
Samuel Kvasnicka received the bachelor’s degree BSc (Hons.) and master’s degree Dipl.-Ing. (Hons.) in electrical engineering from the Graz University of Technology, Graz, in 2016 and 2020, respectively. Since 2020, he holds the position of a university assistant at the Institute of Fundamentals and Theory in Electrical Engineering of the Graz University of Technology and is member of the Silicon Austria Labs, TU-Graz SAL GEMC Lab. His graduate research focuses on model order reduction techniques applied to electromagnetic compatibility simulations.
Thomas Langbauer
Graz University of Technology
Thomas received his bachelor’s in 2015 and master’s degree in 2018 in electrical engineering from Graz University of Technology. Since 2018 he is working for Silicon Austria Labs within the Divison Power Electronics. He contributed to the Tiny Power Box project, which was aiming for highest power density for a bidirectional onboard charger for electric cars. From 2021 to 2022 he was an academic guest at the Power Electronic Systems Laboratory at ETH Zurich for six months. Currently, Thomas is finalizing his PhD thesis, which is supervised at the Electric Drives and Machines Institute at Graz University of Technology. His main research interests are power dense converters including modulation schemes and control design.
Michael Leumüller
TU Wien
Michael is a PhD student at Technische Universität Wien where he is pursuing a degree in Applied Mathematics. He received his Masters Degree with distinction at TU Wien in Applied Mathematics. In his studies, Michael is focusing on researching finite element simulation methods for wave problems. His main interest lies in developing discretisation schemes and iterative solvers for large wave propagation examples.
Jose Romero Lopera
Graz University of Technology
Born in Valencia (Spain). Studied at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), where he graduated as Dipl. Ing- in the studies of Industrial Engineering. Afterward, he graduated with a master’s of electrical engineering at the TU Graz. After the master’s, he enrolled in PhD position focused on RF power amplifiers at the institute of microwave and photonics engineering (IHF) at TU Graz. He’s currently a member of GEMC Lab and im working in IA enhanced adaptive wireless power transfer systems based in commercial NFC/RFID technologies
Muhammad Hassan Malik
University of Klagenfurt
Hassan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Electronics from Pakistan Air Force Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology (PAF-KIET). He received his master’s degree in Micro and Nano Systems from Technical University Chemnitz, Germany in 2019. He joined Silicon Austria Labs GmbH as a master thesis student, investigating material properties of thin films for the development of process control monitors. His area of interest is electronics packaging and integration. Hassan was a Marie Curie early stage researcher for AQUASENSE project at the SAL focusing on development of flexible electronics. Hassan is currently working as a scientist in the research unit Heterogeneous Integration Technologies at SAL.
Edi Muskardin
Graz University of Technology
Edi is from Croatia, where he has finished his Bachelor’s at Department of Informatics in Rijeka. After his studies and brief industry experience, he enrolled and successfully completed his Master’s in “Software Engineering and Management” at TU Graz. During his Master Thesis he has worked for the project QAMCAS lead by Prof. Franz Wotawa, where they developed quality assurance methods for cyber-physical systems. After his Master’ he enrolled at as a PhD student at SAL Doctoral College where he is maimly working in the DES-Lab project.
Akash Nair
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics
Akash is currently doing his PhD at the Fraunhofer IAF in the growth of piezoelectric thin-films for surface acoustic wave resonators using sputter epitaxy. He specialized in growth of semi-conducting thin film and has previously worked on thin-films as well using pulsed laser deposition to develop multi-ferroic thin films. He is mostly a solid-state physicist with special interest in material growth evolution. Akash has done undergrad and postgrad in material science and worked in the field for over three years.
Lukas Rauter
University of Klagenfurt
Lukas received his Master’s degree in Physical Energy and Measurement Engineering at the Technical University of Vienna. He started as a Junior Researcher in the Smart Systems group at Carinthian Tech Research, focusing on printed and flexible electronics. Afterwards, he joined SAL and is currently working as a Scientist in the research unit Sensor Applications. As project manager of the EFRE funded projects “Smarter Leichtbau” 4.0 and 4.1, he strengthened his knowledge in the field of sustainable printed sensors. He was able to do his PhD within the scope of this projects with the Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt.
Christian Riener
Graz University of Technology
Christian graduated from the Graz University of Technology and received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering in 2019. After his graduation he started in the semiconductor industry as analog chip designer with focus on ultra-low power RF communication systems. In 2020, he joined the University of Technology in Graz, where he now pursues his PhD degree. His research interests include modelling of passive components, EMC modeling and measurement methods in the HF range.
Sara Guerreiro
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Sara started studying Physics Engineering at the University of Coimbra in 2016 and finished her master’s degree in July 2022. She first came to Austria in September 2021 to do her master thesis at SAL where she worked on a project for dynamic light projection in cars using a 2D micromirror, under the supervision of Dr. Adrien Piot. Currently, Sara is employed at SAL as a Junior Scientist continuing her master thesis work. Her focus is to learn and gain experience in designing, simulating, fabricating and characterizing micromirror devices, becoming a trusty scientist in the topic.
Nicolás Daniel Rodríguez
Universidad Nacional del Sur
Nicolás completed his studies of Electronic Engineering at Universidad Nacional del Sur. During his undergraduate studies, he took part of I.DEAR Exchange Program, staying in Siegen, Germany for two semesters taking classes at Universität Siegen, including an Internship by a local company. After finishing his studies as Electronic Engineer, Nicolás started his PhD program on Low Power Integrated Circuits for Deep Neural Network Architectures, further developing on Machine Learning algorithms and VLSI digital design. In 2021, he joined SAL as part of the SAL Doctoral College.
Arash Sahbafard
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Arash Sahbafard is a junior scientist at the Wireless communication team at Silicon Austria LABs (SAL). He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in communication systems in 2016, and the got his Master degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Network communication system in 2020, both from the Isfahan University of Technology , Iran. Since December 2020, he is working with SAL. His research interests include wireless communication, 5G networks, signal processing, Ultra Reliable Low Latency Networks.
Florian Slanovc
University of Vienna
Florian studied both mathematics and physics at the Vienna University of Technology. Already during his undergraduate studies he was engaged in numerical modeling of physical phenomena. Afterwards, he attended a doctoral program at the University of Vienna in collaboration with SAL on optimization in magnetic simulation. Currently, he is mainly working on the development and improvement of magnetic sensor systems.
Jasmin Spettel
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Jasmin received her Master’s degree in Applied Physics at Graz University of Technology. Her Master Thesis was on the development and fabrication of pillar-type photonic crystal waveguide structures for gas sensing applications in cooperation with Infineon Technologies Austria AG, Johannes Kepler University Linz and SAL. Afterwards she joined SAL in Villach, Austria, as a Junior Scientist. Her acceptance at the doctoral school at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, was the start of a cooperative PhD between SAL and EPFL. Currently, her research interests are focused on photonics including Aluminum-(Scandium)-Nitride (Al(Sc)N) for photonics, integrated photonics, photonic micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and photonic sensor applications.
Christian Tatu
Johannes Kepler University
Cristian received his BSc degree in electric and communication engineering from Politehnica University of Bucharest in 2016. He received his MSc degree in microelectronics from Technical University Delft in 2019. He joined SAL in 2020 and he is part of the research unit Frontend Integrated Circuits and Systems, in the Intelligent Wireless Systems division. His research interests include low-power high-performance sigma-delta modulators and electronic design automation.
Franz Vollmaier
Graz University of Technology
Franz Vollmaier received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and master’s degree in electrical engineering and business from Graz University of Technology in 2016. After collecting professional experience in the photovoltaic energy industry, he joined the Division Power Electronics at Silicon Austria Labs in 2018. His current research and focus of his PhD is on power dense charging topologies used for electro-mobility.
Tanja Wallner
Graz University of Technology
Tanja studied Environmental Science and Technology in Styria which was a good mixture of system science, physics, chemistry and environmental technology for her. During her Bachelor’s and Master’s, she worked on projects in physics, chemistry and biochemistry. She wrote her Master’s Thesis about the impact of different chemical components in car exhaust on the environment and on the human body. After her graduation, she started working at the Technical University as a scientific assistant on a project that measured aerosol particles in exhibitions. Her interests are also very diverse and relate not only to questions in natural science but also to technical problem solving and the latest technical applications.
Daniel Windhager
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Daniel received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. His Master’s thesis was the acceleration of a Convolutional Neural Network using an FPGA platform, which was done in collaboration with SAL. After he finished his studies he joined the embedded AI group of SAL in September 2022 as a Junior Scientist working towards his PhD. His research interests include digital design, VLSI and artificial intelligence acceleration.
Georg Zachl
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Georg received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the Johannes Kepler University Linz in Electronics and Information Technology. In 2020, he joined the Energy-Efficient Analog Circuits and Systems department of the Institute for Integrated Circuits, JKU, as a PhD-Candidate in the joint LIT/SAL mmW Lab. His research activities are focused on integrated sub-THz receivers and transmitters implemented in BiCMOS technologies for future communication and radar systems.
Johanna Zikulnig
Graz University of Technology
Johanna obtained her Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Graz University of Technology. After working as a Junior Researcher in the Smart Systems Group at Carinthian Tech Research, she joined the Sensor Applications Group at SAL where she is currently working as a Scientist.
As part of the projects “Smarter Leichtbau” 4.0 and 4.1 Johanna was working on the development of flexible, paper-based sensors for the integration into natural fiber reinforced lightweight components. In the project “OledSolar”, she was responsible for the implementation of automated image processing, cell detection, and data analysis of photoluminescence images taken as part of the quality control in the production of thin film solar cells.
