Sara Vera Hahner was honored for her PhD thesis entitled “Low-dimensional Representations for Diverse Collections of 3D Surface Meshes”, supervised by Jochen Garcke. In her thesis, she researched how machine learning can be used to simplify and compare complex representations of surface data in the computer. Such data plays a key role in industrial design, for example in the development of vehicles. This is Sara Vera Hahner's second award: back in 2016, she received the prize for the best Bachelor's thesis by a female scientist in numerics from the Institute for Numerical Simulation (INS). In her thesis, Sara Vera Hahner demonstrates the possibility of simultaneously treating differently discretized surface grids originating from various data sources, with the help of deep neural networks. The work impresses with a very clear presentation of the results and numerous excellent illustrations. The methods she developed have been published or accepted in three conference papers, each at prestigious conferences.
Rebecca Maria Siebert was awarded the prize for the best Bachelor's thesis by a female scientist at the INS. In her thesis, which was supervised by Jürgen Dölz, Siebert dealt with the numerical approximation of eigenvalue problems of parameter-dependent operators. In practice, these algorithms can be used, for example, to quantify resonances such as those caused by manufacturing tolerances in musical instruments or particle accelerators.The broad range of the work is particularly impressive, as it goes into depth both in mathematical theory (spectral theory) and in practical numerics and implementation (high-dimensional approximation, parallel programming).
The Ada Lovelace Prize for Female Mathematicians was established in 2010 by the Institute for Numerical Simulation at the University of Bonn and has been awarded annually ever since.The award serves to promote young women in numerics.The prize is named after the British mathematician Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1852).The prize is awarded for outstanding Bachelor's and Master's theses as well as PhD theses. The prize money ranges from 500 euros for the best Bachelor's thesis to 1,000 euros for the best Master's thesis and 2,000 euros for the best PhD thesis by a female scientist.