Shaping the scientific frontier of cybersecurity and trustworthy AI.
Michael Backes is an internationally renowned researcher and one of the leading scientific authorities in cybersecurity, privacy and trustworthy artificial intelligence. For more than two decades, his research has helped shape these fields internationally — from the foundations of cryptographic security and privacy to machine-learning security and, most recently, the trustworthiness of generative AI and large language models.
His work has never been confined to academic research alone. Several technologies and systems emerging from his research have attracted widespread attention and found substantial real-world adoption. From privacy and mobile security to distributed machine learning and AI security, his work has repeatedly translated fundamental scientific ideas into technologies with practical relevance far beyond the research community.
What distinguishes his scientific career, however, is not simply the volume of research or the number of distinctions. It is the repeated ability to recognize important scientific problems early and move into fields before their broader significance became obvious.
Across these different scientific waves, the underlying ambition has remained constant:
