Benedikt received his bachelor’s (2011) and master’s degree (2013, with distinction) in Applied Computer Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen. While studying, he started to work as a student assistant, among others, in the Interactive Systems group. Benedikt joined the group as a researcher in March 2012. From then to 2020, he was administrative coordinator for Computer Science in the MINTroduce project, in which he supported study beginners and was responsible for the program’s preliminary courses.

In 2013, Benedikt became a full member of the Interactive Systems group. His research focuses on the field of recommender systems, in particular, preference elicitation, interactive recommending and user studies. At the intersection of these topics, he also started his PhD studies, which, among others, led to several research developments, e.g. Blended Recommending and TagMF. In parallel, Benedikt was involved in the ColognE-mobil project part II, where he was responsible for developing smart navigation solutions for intermodal mobility chains, as well as in other research developments, e.g. the Archaeological Sandbox and several GWAPs. In March 2021, Benedikt finished his PhD studies and received the degree of Dr.-Ing. (summa cum laude).

Benedikt also enjoys his teaching activities, including a lecture on Recommender Systems. Since 2014, he has been webmaster of the official ACM RecSys website. Until 2020, he also served as web chair for the conference. Moreover, he regularly serves as a committee member and reviewer for a variety of journals and conferences. Most recently, Benedikt co-founded the GI group on User-centered AI.

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