Alexander Pretschner

Prof. Alexander Pretschner is a Professor of Software & Systems Engineering at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Founding Director of the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt). He also serves as Scientific Director of fortiss, a Bavarian research institute for software-intensive systems. His research focuses on software engineering, testing, information security, and ethical software development. Pretschner holds a PhD from TUM and has held academic positions at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and TU Kaiserslautern. He is a co-editor of several prestigious journals, including IEEE Transactions on Reliability and the Journal of Software Testing, Verification and Reliability.

Education:

• PhD in Computer Science, Technical University of Munich
• MSc in Computer Science, University of Kansas (on Fulbright Scholarship)
• Diplom in Computer Science, RWTH Aachen University

Research Interests: His work spans testing methodologies, secure software design, and ethical considerations in agile development. Notable contributions include frameworks for metamorphic testing, distributed data usage control, and accountability mechanisms for cyber-physical systems.

Awards:

• IBM Faculty Award (2012, 2013)
• Google Focused Research Award (2011, 2012)
• EARTO Innovation Prize (2014)
• 2nd Platz Supervisory Award (2020)

Advising & Grants: Pretschner has supervised numerous PhD and Master’s students, contributing to over 200 publications. He leads projects like EDAP (Ethical Deliberation in Agile Processes) and collaborates with industry partners on cybersecurity and AI ethics initiatives.

Labs & Teams: His work is anchored in bidt, fortiss, and TUM’s Chair of Software & Systems Engineering, focusing on societal impacts of digitalization and trustworthy AI systems.