Department of Informatics
Departmentof Informatics
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Riebisch passed away
12 January 2023
Photo: uhh/fbi
We mourn the death of our colleague Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Riebisch, who passed away after a short, serious illness.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Riebisch
* 21. März 1963 † 11. Januar 2023
At the age of 59, Matthias Riebisch passed away unexpectedly after a short, serious illness. He had been teaching and researching at the Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg as a professor since 2012. He was popular and highly regarded by students and colleagues alike.
His scientific area of expertise was software development and construction methods, where he primarily researched the evolution of complex software systems: He combined the topics of software architecture, software reengineering, and modeling to enable the development of large software systems so that they can evolve and adapt to changing requirements despite their complexity.
Matthias Riebisch studied automation engineering at the Technische Universität Dresden and worked from 1988 to 2012 at the Technische Universität Ilmenau in the Systems and Software Engineering Group. There he received his PhD in 1993 ("Wiederverwendung prozeßnaher Software auf der Basis halbformaler Beschreibungsmittel") and his habilitation in 2004 ("Evolution und Komposition von Softwaresystemen: Software-Produktlinien als Beitrag zu Flexibilität und Langlebigkeit"). His work in the 1990s and 2000s has in particular advanced the approach of software development with software product lines by improving the traceability between so-called "features" and thus increasing comprehensibility and maintainability.
Matthias Riebisch has been involved within the Universität Hamburg in faculty and departmental councils, doctoral and examination committees, and the board of the Department of Informatics. Beyond the university, he contributed to national and international communities of expertise, in particular the specialist group on architectures and the cross-sectional specialist committee on modeling of the Gesellschaft für Informatik. He enjoyed welcoming scientists to Hamburg, most recently to the ICSA 2019 (International Conference on Software Architecture) and Modellierung 2022 conferences, which he hosted.With Matthias Riebisch, the Universität Hamburg loses a renowned scientist and dedicated academic teacher. We will miss him and honor his memory.
