Modulian of the Month - Dr. Marta Sabou

Assistant Professor at the Department of New Media Technology, Dr. Marta Sabou leads a distinguished career in the male-dominated field of computer science. One of two Transylvanians in the New Media hallway, Marta has been at MODUL University Vienna since May 2010. Prior to enriching the international community of MU, she was a Research Fellow at the Knowledge Media Institute of the Open University, UK.

She holds both a PhD and a Master's Degree in Artificial Intelligence from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, having completed her doctorate at 28 years old. Marta’s dissertation on the topic of enhancing and (semi)automatically learning ontologies used to specify the semantic description of Web services in order to automate their discovery and composition led her to win IEEE Intelligent System’s ‘’Ten to Watch’’ Award in 2006.

Much of Marta’s work was carried out in the context of major European research projects such as WonderWeb, KnowledgeWeb, SWAP, NeOn, OpenKnowledge and SmartProducts, and her current research focuses on building novel applications that are capable of exploring large-scale, semantic Web content. She has been published in IEEE Intelligent Systems, Journal of Web Semantics, and high-impact conferences such as the International World Wide Web Conference and the International Semantic Web.

In addition to her multitude of academic achievements, Marta is this year’s recipient of MU’s Employee Award for Sustainability. Her proposal ‘Online Forum for Resource Sharing’ proposed ‘’the implementation of an online forum (or messaging board) that would allow students (and university stuff alike) to exchange, sell, or donate unwanted possessions’’. Integrating MU’s key pillar of environmental and social sustainability alongside her expertise in computer-related endeavors, her idea will create an internet forum for exchange of ideas as well as material goods using an interactive layout accessible to all staff and students. Other benefits will be to strengthen the MU social community through encouraging group action and instill the habit of resource-sharing as a way of life.

At MU, she conducts research in the areas of semantic web technologies and social media as well as developing curricula to teach these topics and Information Systems Management courses in the BBA in Tourism, Hospitality Management, the MSc programs in Sustainable Development, Management and Policy and International Tourism Management as well as the MBA in New Media Technology.

Off Kahlenberg, Marta enjoys the quiet life with her husband and two young children. When she’s not engaged in developing cutting-edge technologies, you may find her baking cookies with her kids at the Montessori Kindergarten, or working out at the gym.

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Sustainability Committee chair Sabine Sedlacek with Marta Sabou