Martin Hepp

Martin Hepp is Professor of Web Science and Digitalization at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces Munich, where he leads the E-Business and Web Science Research Group. His academic career spans multiple prestigious institutions including the University of Innsbruck, Florida Gulf Coast University, and IBM Research. He holds a PhD in Business Information Systems from the University of Würzburg where he graduated Summa Cum Laude.

His research focuses on shared data structures at Web scale, with particular expertise in Semantic Web technologies, ontology engineering, and data quality management. He is best known for developing the GoodRelations vocabulary for e-commerce, which since November 2012 has become the e-commerce core of schema.org, the official data markup standard adopted by major search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex. His work is widely implemented by companies ranging from Google and Yahoo to BestBuy, Kmart, Volkswagen, and Renault, as well as tens of thousands of smaller businesses.

His publication record shows a consistent focus on practical applications of Semantic Web technologies in business contexts, with recent work emphasizing Linked Data applications, product classification systems, and e-commerce standards. His research demonstrates strong industry impact, particularly through the adoption of GoodRelations as a foundational standard for web commerce data.

• Linked Data-a-thon Award (4th prize) at ISWC 2009
• ACM Senior Member appointment (2009)
• FIT-IT outstanding research proposal award (2nd place, 2007)
• Dissertation Award from Alcatel SEL Foundation (2004)
• Dissertation Award from Unterfränkische Gedenkjahrstiftung (2004)

Professor Hepp has served on numerous editorial boards including the International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems, and has been a program committee member for over sixty conferences including ECIS, EKAW, ESWC, ISWC, and WWW. He has organized more than fifteen workshops and conference tracks on conceptual modeling and Semantic Web topics. His work bridges academic research with practical business applications, particularly in the areas of e-commerce standards and semantic data interoperability.