Anja Feldmann

Anja Feldmann is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken and Professor of Internet Network Architectures at Technische Universität Berlin (since 2006). Previously she held a full professorship at Technische Universität München (2002–2006) and conducted research at AT&T Labs Research, Saarland University, and Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1995.

Education

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 1995
• M.Sc. in Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 1991
• Diplom in Computer Science, Universität Paderborn, 1990

Research Interests

Anja Feldmann’s research centers on measurement-driven understanding of the Internet. She tackles challenges such as software-defined networking, cloud-network interactions, performance debugging, and traffic characterization. A growing focus is the privacy and security of networked systems, evidenced by recent studies on online tracking, DNS security, and disinformation ecosystems.

Her group designs scalable measurement platforms that combine passive and active monitoring, programmable data planes, and machine-learning analytics to dissect phenomena ranging from terabit-scale traffic to covert tracking on illegal streaming sites.

Recent Publication Themes

The 2021-2025 publications reveal a methodological evolution toward large-scale, longitudinal measurement. Topics include:

• Impact of global events (COVID-19, CrowdStrike outage) on Internet traffic
• Cross-country tracking ecosystems and privacy leaks
• DNS root and routing plane stability and security
• ML-driven real-time monitoring at terabit speeds
• Disinformation campaigns on encrypted messaging platforms

Scientific Awards

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2011) – Germany’s highest research honor
• Berliner Wissenschaftspreis (2011)
• Elected Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2009)

Advising & Grants

While individual student names are not listed, Prof. Feldmann leads a vibrant team at MPI-INF’s Internet Architecture department. She has supervised numerous doctoral candidates and post-doctoral researchers whose work is reflected in the co-authored papers. Funding sources include the German Research Foundation (DFG) via the Leibniz Prize and EU Horizon projects, although explicit grant numbers are not provided in the source material.

Labs & Teams

She heads the Internet Architecture department at MPI-INF, located at the Saarland Informatics Campus. The department operates state-of-the-art measurement infrastructure—including programmable switches, honeynets, and global vantage points—to support empirical network science.