Marcel Moosbrugger
Purdue CS: Tell us about yourself.
MM: I am Marcel Moosbrugger, although born in a small village in the mountains of Austria, I was always fascinated with science and especially computer science. That's why I moved to the capital, Vienna, to study this subject at the TU Wien. In the time at the TU Wien, I grew to love academia and doing research. Nevertheless, my roots are still present and I love hiking up my hometown mountains during holidays.
Purdue CS: How did you become interested in computer science and research?
MM: During high school, I had a very enthusiastic computer science teacher, who also worked as a software engineer. He encouraged me to pursue a career in computer science and even gave me private lessons. He had a huge influence on me. But also during my studies at TU Wien, I was lucky enough to work and meet with very talented colleges and professors. Prof. Thomas Eiter was my mentor during my Honors degree and gave me a lot of guidance. Last year I got the chance to intern with Professor Laurent Doyen from ENS Cachan in Paris, which was a great introduction to academic research and reassured me in my plan to pursue a PhD.
Purdue CS: What are your future plans in the CS industry?
MM: During my bachelor studies, I also worked as a software engineer. However, my fascination with original research was always bigger. As a result, I plan to continue with a PhD. I have not decided on a specific PhD program yet. However, I am considering applying for programs in the US and more specifically at Purdue.
Purdue CS: What are you working on during the GoBoiler Internship?
MM: Neural networks and deep learning are everywhere nowadays. They are for example used in self-driving cars. Neural nets do their job quite well but have one major problem. That is, we cannot give provable guarantees about them. However, especially as they are more and more deployed in safety-critical environments like self-driving cars, we would want to make sure they work correctly. Professor Roopsha Samanta and her research group at Purdue works on fixing this issue and I hope to be able to contribute something to their work. Beneath learning more about the topic itself I will surely gain more insight into how high-quality research is done.
Purdue CS: What influenced you to apply for the GoBoiler Internship?
MM: Purdue University cooperates with the Honors program of TU Wien, my home university. Through this Honors program, I became aware of the internship opportunities at Purdue. Moreover, at Purdue, there are some well-known professors in my field of interest, program verification and synthesis.