Zeta Avarikioti, Assistant Professor at our Research Unit for Security and Privacy, has been awarded the Käthe Böhm Fellowship in recognition of her outstanding scientific achievements and exceptional potential to establish an independent research profile at an early stage of her academic career.

The Käthe Böhm Fellowship is a targeted funding initiative at TU Wien, designed to support outstanding female researchers at the beginning of their academic careers. Named after Käthe Böhm, the first woman to graduate in electrical engineering from TU Wien in 1925, the fellowship aims to foster equal opportunities and empower talented women to reach their full scientific potential. The program specifically supports women who have recently taken up tenure-track or career development positions outlined in their faculty’s strategic plans.

For Avarikioti, the award represents both recognition and opportunity. The fellowship provides funding of up to €30.000, which can be used flexibly over a period of up to two years. These funds are intended to help recipients establish and expand their independent research groups.

Congratulations!

About Zeta Avarikioti

Zeta Avarikioti is Assistant Professor at our Research Unit for Security and Privacy. She holds a PhD in Distributed Computing from ETH Zurich and has previously held research positions at IST Austria and Columbia University. Her research has been published in leading venues such as CCS, USENIX Security, NDSS, and Financial Cryptography, and her contributions have influenced both academic theory and real-world systems, including the BitVM interoperability framework, which has seen rapid industrial adoption and development. Her work has been supported by competitive national and international funding, including an FWF, ESPRIT, and two WWTF projects. She currently serves on the program committees of top-tier conferences (CCS, USENIX Security, FC) and as Program Chair of the Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2025) conference. In 2025, she was honored with the Hedy Lamarr Prize by the City of Vienna.

On the industrial front, Zeta Avarikioti is the Chief Scientist at Common Prefix, a consulting firm bridging academia and industry in blockchain innovation. At TU Wien, she leads the Blockchain Hub that fosters collaboration between researchers, students, and global technology partners to advance distributed ledger technology (DLT) research and development.

If you want to find our more about her, check out our #5QW!

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