Sergey Oladyshkin appointed as extraordinary professor

October 20, 2020 / Sabine Sämisch

With effect from September 14, 2020, the Rector of the University of Stuttgart, Wolfram Ressel, has appointed Sergey Oladyshkin as extraordinary professor. With this, he agreed to a proposal by the Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science (SC SimTech) and the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

“We are very happy for Mr. Oladyshkin that SimTech, Faculty 2 and the Senate appreciate his longtime merits in research and teaching in such a prestigious way”, said Wolfgang Nowak on the appointment. It was also he who initiated the process in SimTech and Faculty 2.

Sergey Oladyshkin, born in Russia in 1980, studied Applied Mathematics at the Nizhniy Novogorod State Technical University. Then, he received his doctorate in 2006 at the École Nationale Supérieure de Géologie in Nancy, France, in the field of environmental engineering. Finally, he habilitated at the University of Stuttgart in February 2014. Meanwhile, he is deputy head of the Chair of Stochastic Simulation and Safety Research for Hydrosystems at the Institute for Water and Environmental System Modelling at the University of Stuttgart, where he heads the working group “Model Reduction and Data Assimilation”.

“Due to the paradigm shift in science towards simulation-based research and data-driven simulations, it becomes indispensable to develop theories, algorithms and frameworks for analyzing uncertainties within much more extensive and computationally complex models. Model reductions, as developed by Mr. Oladyshkin, allow such uncertainty analyses. They enable scientific inference, optimization, reliability engineering and data assimilation even with multi-physics, highly complex simulation tools. This is enormously important, especially for a Cluster of Excellence dealing with data-integrated simulation science,” said Cluster spokesperson Thomas Ertl, explaining their decision to support the proposal.

An extraordinary professorship is an important module for young scientists. It is an academic title awarded to privates lecturers* who have demonstrably rendered outstanding services to research and teaching. At the same time, it reflects a high degree of external recognition. In order to receive an extraordinary professorship, one must convince the school, senate and university leadership that one has in fact lived the professional profile of a professor for several years after one’s habilitation*, i.e. one must be able to demonstrate substantial contributions in research, third-party funding and teaching.

This is what Sergey Oladyshkin did. In recent years, he has developed an independent research profile that has received considerable national and international attention. His main focus is on uncertainty analysis and optimization of complex systems using model reduction.

“Mr. Oladyshkin, and this is just one of the reasons, recognized very early that successful solutions can only be achieved in a networked, international, interdisciplinary environment. Therefore, his research work has often emerged from very successful collaboration with mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers and application partners. He has always been able to use his outstanding skills as an interdisciplinary integrator,” explains Harald Garrecht, Dean of Faculty 2.

Besides his work at the Chair of Stochastic Simulation and Safety Research for Hydrosystems, he is also Participating Researcher in the Cluster of Excellence EXC 2075 “Data-integrated Simulation Science” and Principal Investigator in the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1313.

Congratulations to Mr. Oladyshkin for this award.


* Privatdozent is a title related to the highest degree academics can earn in Germany after the PhD. This highest degree after the PhD is called the Habilitation – the final qualification step required to become a professor.

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