Nahrstedt receives the 2018 Robert Piloty Prize for outstanding research

CSL Director Klara Nahrstedt has received the 2018 Robert Piloty Prize for her contributions to multimedia systems and networks research. The Piloty Prize is conferred by the TU Darmstadt in Germany to recipients who have demonstrated “outstanding achievements and exceptional research and development work in the fields of computer science, electrical engineering, information technology and mathematics.”

Nahrstedt, the Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, is internationally recognized for her work in multimedia systems and networks. Her fundamental work on energy-efficient dynamic soft-real-time CPU scheduling for mobile multimedia devices, and development of first energy-efficient OS for mobile multimedia devices, GRACE-OS, has been widely recognized in academia and industry.

In the field of 3D tele-immersive systems and networking, Nahrstedt was the first to develop a multi-view 3D video adaptation framework for bandwidth management and view-casting protocols for multi-view 3D video. She developed new metrics for 3D immersive video and the first comprehensive framework based on sound theoretical underpinnings for Quality of Experience in Distributed Interactive Multimedia Environments.

A fellow of ACM and IEEE, Nahrstedt has strong ties to the German computer science and engineering community. She is a member of the Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) in Germany and belongs to the Excellence Commission appointed by the Joint Science Conference of the German Federal Government and the Länder. She has enjoyed a strong relationship with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and the Department of Computer Science at the TU Darmstadt for many years, including the research collaboration in the Collaborative Research Centre 1053 on Future Internet, called MAKI, and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). She also is a longtime collaborator of Prof. Ralf Steinmetz of TU Darmstadt, with whom Nahrstedt has co-authored two textbooks, “Mutilmedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (1995)” and “Multimedia Systems (2004).”

The award was presented to Nahrstedt, along with mathematician Wolfgang Dahmen, in Germany on Feb. 15.

“My collaboration with the TU Darmstadt has been one of the most productive of my career, and I am deeply honored to receive this award,” Nahrstedt said.