Chalmers Faculty Senate has awarded the astronaut Marcus Wandt as an honorary doctor at Chalmers 2024. Helen Byrne and Gilles Barthe will also be Chalmers honorary doctors, awarded for their important contributions and collaborations with Chalmers and for major efforts in the fields of mathematical biology and cryptography.
Marcus Wandt has been working as a test pilot at Saab in Linköping since 2014 and since 2020 as a chief test pilot. Marcus Wandt was selected for ESA's astronaut group in 2022 and has since 2023 been employed as a project astronaut. He made his first space journey during January – February 2024 when he traveled to the International Space Station as a mission specialist on Axiom-3 mission.
He is awarded an honorary doctorate for his exceptionally successful mission in space, not only in terms of research, but also in his ability to communicate this unique experience to the public. He has also made it clear in an exemplary way why space research is important to humanity and emphasized the role of basic research in our society.
Marcus Wandt graduated from the civil engineering program in electrical engineering at Chalmers in 2007. He likes to emphasize his educational background where he stresses that an engineer's skills - problem solving, creativity and the ability to understand and apply advanced technology - are invaluable in a complex and sometimes unpredictable environment. With his experience and communication skills, he is a great asset and inspiration for Chalmers and its current and prospective students in general and in space research in particular.
Marcus Wandt is simultaneously appointed honorary doctor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Linköping university.
Helen Byrne is Professor of Applied Mathematics at The Wolfson Center for Mathematical Biology at the University of Oxford.
She is awarded an honorary doctorate for her important contributions in mathematical modeling of tumours, but also for her work on wound healing and tissue mechanics. Through successful collaborations with experimental researchers, she has bridged the gap between theory and application and has thus set a new standard in mathematical tumor modeling. Helen Byrne has previously been employed at the University of Nottingham where she led the Nottingham Center for Mathematical Medicine and Biology and has also led work for equality and diversity at Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences at Oxford University.
Helen Byrne was recently an invited speaker at a Wenner-Gren symposium at Chalmers where international and local researchers discussed the future of data-driven biomathematics, which contributed to strengthening this research environment at Chalmers. Helen has also acted as an opponent at Mathematical Sciences.
Gilles Barthe is the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP), Bochum, Germany, and research professor at IMDEA Software Institute, Madrid, Spain.
He is awarded an honorary doctorate for revolutionizing the area of cryptography, by developing high-impact machine-checked frameworks for the construction and automated verification of cryptographic systems. Gilles Barthe has made outstanding contributions to research on security, privacy, cryptography, programming languages, logic, type theory, and verification. It is striking how he has applied his skills in type theory, semantics, and the formalization of mathematics, in a powerful way to solve important problems in computer security, privacy, and cryptography.
Gilles Barthe recognizes his role in the research activities at Chalmers, from going back to his time at Chalmers as a researcher to several successful research collaborations and projects since then. These collaborations include high-profile work on the security of multithreaded programs by compilation. He currently works on a deeply embedded quantum programming language that connects to trustworthy quantum computing algorithms, as pursued by the Chalmers-coordinated Wallenberg Center for Quantum Technology (WACQT).
Chalmers' doctoral promotion is held on 1 June.