Dr.-Ing. Zeyd Boukhers
Lead of FAIR Data & Distributed Analytics Group
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT)
Institute for Medical Informatics, University Hospital of Cologne
Biography
I lead the FAIR Data & Distributed Analytics Group at Fraunhofer FIT, where my team builds infrastructure for data-intensive research. My background spans from computer vision and pattern recognition (my PhD focus at University of Siegen) to semantic web technologies and trustworthy AI—a progression driven by the realization that technical excellence means nothing if researchers can't share and trust their data.
I apply these technologies across diverse domains: healthcare systems at University Hospital of Cologne, AI-driven biodiversity monitoring through AI-BioDynamics, cultural heritage preservation via ARGUS, and national research infrastructure as Co-Spokesperson of NFDI4DataScience. Each domain brings unique challenges—privacy in healthcare, scale in biodiversity, longevity in cultural heritage—but the core question remains: how do we make data findable, accessible, and trustworthy?
My journey from Algeria 🇩🇿 to Germany 🇩🇪, through positions at Universities of Siegen and Koblenz-Landau, has taught me that good infrastructure should be invisible. Researchers should focus on their questions, not data formats.
Research Interests
Trustworthy AI & Machine Learning
Explainable AI, privacy-preserving machine learning, responsible AI systems, computer vision
Semantic Web & Knowledge Graphs
Semantic interoperability, knowledge representation, linked data, ontologies
FAIR Data Infrastructure
Data spaces, distributed analytics, research data management, open science
Data Sovereignty & Governance
Privacy-preserving technologies, data trusteeship, federated systems, Gaia-X
Education
Dr.-Ing. (PhD) in Computer Science
University of Siegen, Germany
Magna Cum Laude in Machine Learning, Data Science and Computer Vision (Supervisor: Prof. Marcin Grzegorzek)
Master of Science in Pattern Recognition and AI
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Professional Experience
Associate Professor
Southern University of Denmark
Position offered at SDU Software Engineering
Lead of FAIR Data & Distributed Analytics Group
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT)
Leading a research group of 4-6 FTE focused on FAIR data infrastructure, data spaces, and distributed analytics solutions.
Senior Researcher & Project Manager (20%)
Institute for Medical Informatics, University Hospital of Cologne
Research and teaching in medical informatics with focus on AI applications in healthcare.
Lead of Machine Learning & Data Science Focus Group
Institute for Web Science and Technology, University of Koblenz-Landau
Postdoc with independent research and teaching responsibilities. Leading focus group for ML & Data Science.
Research Assistant & PhD Candidate
Pattern Recognition Research Group, University of Siegen
Research in computer vision and pattern recognition. Teaching assistant for multiple courses.
Development Manager & Lecturer
IT&B, Oran, Algeria & University of Oran, Algeria
Development manager in industry and lecturer at University of Oran.
Awards & Honors
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Best Paper Award, TPDL 2022 (September 2022)
"Whois? Deep Author Name Disambiguation using Bibliographic Data" (First Author)
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Best Paper Award, CORES 2015 (May 2015)
International Conference on Computer Recognition Systems (First Author)
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DAAD Research Grant, 2013-2017
Doctoral candidates and young academics scholarship program
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Research Fellowship, Kobe University, Japan 🇯🇵 (January-March 2016)
CS24 group under supervision of Prof. Kuniaki Uehara