The 2025 BayWISS Prize for outstanding or future-oriented research in individual scientific fields was ceremoniously awarded during the Annual Colloquium at Kempten University of Applied Sciences by Chairman of the BayWISS Steering Board, Prof. Gordon T. Rohrmair, to the following three award winners: Alexander Bartsch, Dong Wang and Jonas Ammeling.
Jonas Ammeling from the Joint Academic Partnership Health was awarded third place.
His doctoral thesis is titled: "Künstliche Intelligenz in der Pathologie: Potenziale für Präzision, Effizienz und Zusammenarbeit" (artificial intelligence in pathology: potentials for precision, efficiency and cooperation).
Jonas Ammeling came to TH Ingolstadt as research assistant and doctoral candidate with a Master's degree in "Statistics and Data Science" from Universiteit Leiden in 2022. His doctoral thesis is supervised by Prof. Katharina Breininger, who at the time was conducting research at FAU, and Prof. Marc Aubreville, who was working at THI. In the meantime, Katharina Breininger has moved to University of Würzburg and Marc Aubreville to University of Applied Sciences Flensburg – Jonas Ammeling, however, has remained at THI and with BayWISS!
Second place was awarded to Dong Wang, from Henan (PR China), who is obtaining his doctorate in the Joint Academic Partnership Digitalisation on "Infradar-SLAM: Light-Weight Indoor 3D SLAM Based on Infrared- and Radar-Fusion ".
After obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in mechatronics at Tongji University, Dong Wang came to FAU in Erlangen where he continued and successfully completed his studies with a Master’s degree. Since January 2023, he has been a doctoral candidate with Prof. Andreas Nüchter at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. His doctoral thesis is additionally supervised by Prof. Stefan May from Nuremberg Institute of Technology.
Dong Wang describes his research as follows: "Autonomous systems which are capable of acting reliably and efficiently under challenging conditions open up new potential applications in areas such as rescue missions, industrial automation, autonomous transport and disaster control. The developed technology makes it possible to also apply robots in situations in which traditional methods would fail, for instance in surroundings filled with smoke or dust after earthquakes or for rescue missions in complex industrial plants."
First place went to Alexander Bartsch, also member in the Joint Academic Partnership Health. His doctoral thesis is titled: "Apnea Treat. Ein neuartiges Implantat zur Behandlung obstruktiver Schlafapnoe" (Apnea Treat. An innovative implant for the treatment of obstuctive sleep apnoea).
Alexander Bartsch initially completed an apprenticeship as mechatronics engineer at the company Trumpf GmbH, continued to do his "Fachhochschulreife" and subsequently came to Kempten University of Applied Sciences for his Bachelor’s programme. He received his Master’s degree in Medical Devices from Ulm University of Applied Sciences and went to Prof. Schratzenstaller at OTH Regensburg, who has been supervising his doctoral thesis for the last three years together with University of Regensburg.
Alexander Bartsch's interest in this wide-spread chronical disease – almost a billion people are suffering from it! – was aroused by talks with people affected. He thus started developing a "minimally invasive, passive soft tissue implant for stabilising the upper respiratory tract during sleep", preventing the tongue falling back into the pharynx. Alexander Bartsch explains that his – patented – implant "ApneaTreat" provides: "a maintenance-free, energy-independent solution, the implantation of which can take place during a short, possibly even out-patient operation – involving minimal follow-up costs. Cheap production possibilities make scaling possible even for health systems with limited budget."