Person

My full name is Alexander Oliver Mader—hence the domain name a·o·mader.com—and I am a computer scientist and researcher from the northern part of Germany. Unconventionally, I go by my second given name Oliver, or even simpler just Oli.

Education

From an early age, I knew that I wanted to study computer science. Luckily, a numerus clausus hadn’t been established yet for that major, so I was able to cultivate a trait during my secondary education that might seem weird at first glance: laziness. By that, I mean the ability to successfully reach a goal by investing as few resources as possible. This does not mean slacking off but operating very efficiently.

A picture of Alexander Oliver Mader giving a talk at the MICCAI conference in Quebec City, Canada, in 2017 — This is me giving a talk at the MICCAI conference in Quebec City, Canada, in 2017. I had a motorcycle accident in Romania a few weeks before, which is why I was bandaged. However, I could not miss this opportunity.

So I finished school and went off to the University of Applied Sciences in Kiel in order to study computer science. Since I used as little energy as possible to finish school, I had plenty of time to prepare for other things like going to the university. So before I took my first lecture, I had already published a few open-source software projects in various programming languages, administered a couple of dedicated Linux servers, and even acquired my first jobs as a software engineer. Needless to say that this was immensely helpful for my studies and I was finally awarded a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) and afterwards a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree, both with honors.

During my Master’s, I focused on image processing in combination with pattern recognition and machine learning, topics that I find extremely fascinating and worthwhile to pursue. For example, applied in the medical domain these fields already yield huge successes. So after a small detour as a software engineer in the industry, I went to the Kiel University in order to pursue a doctoral degree (Dr.-Ing., Doctor of Engineering) and to deepen my knowledge in these areas. Prof. Dr. Meyer became my supervisor and mentor, he also sparked the initial interest in these topics. In August 2020, I handed in my thesis titled “Automatic Localization of Spatially Correlated Key Points in Medical Images” to the Faculty of Engineering at the Kiel University (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) and successfully defended it in March 2021 (graded very good, magna cum laude).

Leisure time

I currently live with my fiancée Thu Trang in Kiel, Germany. When I am not spending time with her, I like to take my motorcycle for a ride, go for a hike or go windsurfing. The last one is a rather new addition, but it seems to be mandatory to do some sort of watersport when you live by the coast as we do.

A picture of Alexander Oliver Mader riding his motorcycle (a Yamaha MT 07) at the racetrack Motorsport Arena in Oschersleben, Germany. — Entering a corner at the racetrack Motorsport Arena in Oschersleben, Germany, on my Yamaha MT 07. Currently, I use a Suzuki GSX-R 600 for racing and use the Yamaha only for street riding.

Although I fancy the outdoors very much, I also like the digital world, for example, in a good round of “rip and tear” or countless attempts in a good rogue-like game. On the less destructive side, I also participate in the open-source community and like exploring new technologies. I am addicted to learning new things!

When it comes to music, I prefer what most people would probably categorize as a monotonic and unsettling form of music: hardcore techno with more than 160 beats per minute. Especially the genres frenchcore, hardtek, speedcore and terror bring pleasure to my ears. Even more surprising for most people is the fact that I enjoy that kind of music while doing tasks that need a high amount of concentration and work effort. I guess the constant driving beats help me on pushing even further. Don’t worry though, I do like to listen to other non-techno-based genres as well.