Informatics professor Alfred Kobsa has received a Mercator Fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the largest research funding organization in Germany. The Mercator fellowship will enable Kobsa—whose research focuses on the areas of user modeling and personalized systems, privacy, support for personal health maintenance, and information visualization—to participate in “intensive, long-term project-based collaboration between researchers from both domestic and foreign institutions,” according to the DFG. Throughout the duration of the fellowship, Kobsa will work both on-site at a German institution and continue his project collaboration here in Irvine. “Foreign Mercator Fellowship holders are awarded the title of Mercator Fellows in recognition of their dedication,” the DFG notes.

As the largest independent research funding organization in Germany, the DFG “promotes the advancement of science and the humanities by funding research projects, research [centers] and networks, and facilitating cooperation among researchers,” according to its website. It also joins major international funding counterparts like the National Science Foundation and the Royal Society as a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU).