She's world class in what she enjoys. Student's algorithm "hack" awarded at TU Wien

Barbora Šmahlíková, a student of the Faculty of Information Technology at Brno University of Technology (FIT), has won the international student prize of the Vienna Centre for Logic and Algorithms (VCLA), which is a part of the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien). She received the prestigious award for her bachelor’s thesis "Next Generation of Rank-Based Algorithms for Omega Automata", which she developed under the joint supervision of Vojtěch Havlena and Ondřej Lengál. In her bachelor’s thesis she deals with the optimization of algorithms for Büchi automata which help determine the behavior of systems running continuously for a long time, such as operating or control systems.

Barbora Šmahlíková became interested in research in the second year of her bachelor's studies and soon reached the level usually occupied by doctoral students.

“My only requirement was that I wanted to do something related to theoretical informatics and mathematics, because that’s what I’ve always enjoyed. My supervisor chose complementation of Büchi automata. I spent a couple of months reading articles and studying this topic, after which I was ready to come up with some new ideas for the complementation algorithm. I find this topic very interesting and even though I didn’t know what to expect at first, I dived deeply into it really fast,” she states about the choice of topic and her motivation on the VCLA website.

The result of this"immersion" is an improved algorithm for Büchi automata– currently one of the best ones in the world.

The Vienna Center for Logic and Algorithms is one of the world's leading organizations for logic and formal methods. Established in 2011, it focuses on international scientific collaboration and promoting interest in research in the areas of logic, philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and artificial intelligence. Since 2015, the VCLA International Student Awards have been given in two categories – the Outstanding Master Thesis Award and the Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award.

Barbora Šmahlíková continues her studies at FIT in the Master's programme in Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence with a specialization in Mathematical Methods. The award from Vienna is not the only success she has achieved. The extraordinary nature of her work has already been confirmed with the Rector's Award at BUT, the Zdena Rábová Award for activities increasing the prestige of FIT and especially the Czech Government Award for a gifted student, of which she was the first recipient.

Congratulations to Barbora Šmahlíková!