# Teaching and Mentoring Excellence

**Last updated**: 2025-10-31

Stefan Szeider has received multiple teaching awards and mentored PhD students who became professors at universities worldwide.

## Award-Nominated Courses

### Algorithms and Data Structures (Undergraduate)

**Audience**: Bachelor's students in Computer Science and related fields at TU Wien

**Content**:
- Fundamental data structures (lists, trees, hash tables, graphs)
- Core algorithms (sorting, searching, graph traversal, dynamic programming)
- Complexity analysis and algorithm design techniques
- Practical implementation and problem-solving

**Recognition**: Nominated for **Best Teaching Award 2022** and **Best Distance Learning Award 2020**

**Teaching Philosophy**: Emphasis on understanding *why* algorithms work, not just memorizing procedures. Students learn to analyze problems and design solutions.

**Enrollment**: One of the largest courses at TU Wien Faculty of Informatics, reaching hundreds of students annually.

### Algorithmics (Graduate)

**Audience**: Master's students specializing in algorithms, complexity, and theoretical computer science

**Content**:
- Advanced algorithm design (parameterized algorithms, approximation algorithms)
- Complexity theory (NP-completeness, parameterized complexity, hardness of approximation)
- Specialized topics (satisfiability solving, constraint programming, automated reasoning)
- Current research directions in algorithmic problem-solving

**Approach**: Research-oriented course connecting classical algorithmic theory to modern applications in AI, optimization, and verification.

**Impact**: Many students from this course pursue PhDs in algorithms and complexity.

### Ways of Thinking in Informatics

**Format**: Interdisciplinary course exploring different paradigms in computer science

**Recognition**: Received **Special Award for Digital Teaching 2022**

**Innovation**: The course teaches students to recognize and apply different "modes of thought" in CS:
- Algorithmic thinking (step-by-step procedures)
- Logical thinking (formal reasoning)
- Systems thinking (architecture and interaction)
- Computational thinking (abstraction and decomposition)

**Team Teaching**: Collaborative course with multiple faculty, showing students the breadth of computer science.

## PhD Supervision: A Legacy of Excellence

Stefan Szeider's former PhD students have become professors at universities worldwide.

### Former PhD Students (Now Professors)

**Ronald de Haan** (PhD 2016)
- **Current Position**: Professor, University of Amsterdam
- **Achievement**: Won the **Beth Dissertation Prize**, the highest award for logic dissertations in Europe
- **Research**: Parameterized complexity of reasoning problems
- **Recognition**: Austria's Award of Excellence for PhD thesis

**Eduard Eiben** (PhD 2018)
- **Current Position**: Professor, Royal Holloway, University of London
- **Achievement**: Won **Austria's Award of Excellence** for PhD thesis
- **Research**: Parameterized algorithms and graph problems

**Johannes Klaus Fichte** (PhD 2015)
- **Current Position**: Professor, Linköping University (Sweden)
- **Research**: Answer set programming, database theory, knowledge representation
- **Contribution**: Bridges logic programming and algorithms

**Friedrich Slivovsky** (PhD 2015)
- **Current Position**: Professor, University of Liverpool
- **Research**: Quantified Boolean formulas and verification

**Luke Mathieson** (PhD 2010)
- **Current Position**: Professor, University of Technology Sydney
- **Research**: Parameterized complexity, graph algorithms
- **Teaching**: Known for algorithm teaching in Australia

**Robert Ganian** (Now Professor at TU Wien)
- **Former Postdoc** under Szeider, now colleague as professor at TU Wien
- **Research**: Parameterized algorithms, structural graph theory
- **Collaboration**: Continues joint research on width parameters and algorithms

**Sebastian Ordyniak** (Now Professor, University of Leeds)
- **Former Postdoc** under Szeider
- **Research**: Parameterized complexity, database theory
- **Research**: Algorithms and database theory

### Current PhD Students and Postdocs

**Markus Kirchweger** (PhD student)
Research: Machine learning for SAT solving, neurosymbolic AI

**Tianwei Zhang** (PhD student)
Research: Constraint solving, combinatorial optimization

**Hai Xia** (PhD student)
Research: Parameterized complexity, algorithmic game theory

**Andre Schidler** (PhD 2023, now Postdoc at TU Wien)
Achievement: Received **Best Dissertation Award 2024** from Faculty of Informatics, TU Wien
Research: Width parameters, hypertree decompositions, winner of PACE 2019 competition

**Vaidyanathan P. R.** (PhD 2023, now Postdoc)
Research: SAT solving, proof complexity

**Tomáš Peitl** (PhD 2019, now Postdoc)
Achievement: Co-author of CP 2020 Best Paper Award
Research: Dependency schemes, QBF, formal verification

## Mentoring Philosophy

Stefan Szeider's mentoring approach emphasizes:

1. **Independence**: Students learn to identify and pursue research questions autonomously
2. **Collaboration**: Frequent interaction, joint problem-solving, and co-authorship
3. **Visibility**: Support for conference presentations, networking, and career development
4. **Excellence**: High standards for research quality and mathematical rigor
5. **Placement**: Active support for academic job placements and career transitions

**Success Metric**: The fact that multiple former students hold professorships at top universities demonstrates this mentoring philosophy in action.

## Teaching Awards and Recognition

- **Best Teaching Award Nomination 2022**: Algorithms and Data Structures
- **Best Distance Learning Award Nomination 2020**: Algorithms and Data Structures (pandemic adaptation)
- **Special Award for Digital Teaching 2022**: Ways of Thinking in Informatics
- **Student Feedback**: Consistently high ratings for clarity, engagement, and challenging students to think deeply

## Doctoral Program Leadership

**logicCS@TUWien**: Stefan Szeider serves as **chair** of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND doctoral programme in Logic and Computer Science.

**Mission**: Train PhD students at the intersection of logic, algorithms, and artificial intelligence with international exposure and interdisciplinary collaboration.

**Impact**: Attracted top international PhD students to Vienna, strengthening Austria's position in TCS and AI research.

## Contact

For prospective PhD students interested in algorithms, complexity theory, automated reasoning, or neurosymbolic AI:
**sz@ac.tuwien.ac.at**