Michael Benedikt

Michael Benedikt is Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of University College, Oxford. His research lies at the intersection of computational logic, database theory, and theoretical computer science, with a focus on query answering, logic-based data management, and formal methods for data integration.

• Institution: University of Oxford, Department of Computer Science
• Position: Professor of Computer Science
• Email: michael.benedikt@cs.ox.ac.uk
• Office: 355 Wolfson Building, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QD, UK

His primary research interests include data management, computational logic, model theory, query reformulation, integrity constraints, existential rules, and fixpoint logics. He investigates theoretical foundations of querying Web and social network data, ontology-based data integration, and finite model reasoning.

His recent publications span top venues such as VLDB, PODS, LICS, ICALP, and IJCAI, covering topics like scalable querying of nested data, interpolation in fixpoint logics, finite open-world query answering, and rewriting recursive queries. A unifying theme across his work is the application of logical methods to ensure correctness, decidability, and efficiency in data access and transformation.

• Best Paper Award, ICALP 2017 (Track B)
• EPSRC Established Career Fellowship (2015–2020)

He has supervised numerous PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, including Jaclyn Smith, Djordje Zivanovic, Antonia Kormpa, and Benjamin Spencer. His research group has been supported by grants from EPSRC and Microsoft Research. He actively contributes to the academic community through service on program committees (e.g., LICS, PODS, IJCAI, VLDB) and editorial boards (e.g., Journal of Computer and System Sciences). He co-authored a book on interpolation-based query reformulation published by Morgan Claypool.