Peter Baumann (computer scientist)

Peter Baumann (born 1960 in Rosenheim) is a German computer scientist and professor at Constructor (formerly: Jacobs) University, Bremen, Germany, where he is head of the Large-Scale Scientific Information Systems research group in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Academic positions
Baumann is professor of Computer Science at Constructor (formerly: Jacobs) University, Bremen, Germany and founder and CEO of rasdaman GmbH.

He is inventor and Principal Architect of the rasdaman Array DBMS, the historically first complete implementation of what today is called a "Big Data Analytics" server for large, multi-dimensional arrays. He has authored and co-authored 100+ book chapters and papers on array (aka raster) databases and further fields, and has given tutorials on raster databases worldwide.

Baumann is active in several bodies concerned with scientific data access and use:
 * chair, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) Earth Science Informatics (ESI)
 * board member, United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UNGGIM) Private Sector Network
 * member, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC); functions:
 * chair, Coverages Standards Working Group and Big Data Domain Working Group
 * editor of the OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS) standards suite
 * editor, ISO TC211 19123-1 and 19123-3
 * founding member and chair, CODATA Germany
 * Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) Charter Member

Academic career
Baumann obtained a degree in Computer Science (1987) from Technical University of Munich, a doctorate (1993) in computer Science from the Department of Computer Science of the Technische Universität Darmstadt while working with Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics. He has pursued post-doctoral activities in both industry and academia, working for Softlab Group in Munich (now Cirquent) and as Assistant Head of the Knowledge Bases Research Group of FORWISS (Bavarian Research Center for Knowledge-based Systems) / Technical University of Munich where he was deputy to Prof. Rudolf Bayer, Ph.D. Among Baumann's entrepreneurial activities was founding of the spin-off company rasdaman GmbH for commercialization of the world's first multi-dimensional array database system. In August 2004 he was appointed as Professor of Computer Science at Constructor (formerly: Jacobs) University.

Awards and patents
(source: Peter Baumann's homepage)


 * DIN Innovator Award 2019
 * DatSci Data Science Technology Innovation of the Year, finalist 2019
 * TechConnect World Innovation Award 2019
 * NATO Defence Innovation Challenge award goes to rasdaman as the only product in the Data Science category 2018
 * Copernicus Masters Competition 2014: Winner, Big Data Challenge
 * Open Geospatial Consortium Kenneth Gardels Award 2014
 * Geospatial World Forum Innovation Award 2013
 * Innovationspreis Mittelstand 2012, category: Best of Open Source
 * European IT Prize 1998
 * Jos Schepens Memorial Award 1998
 * Innovation Prize of the Bavarian State Government 1998
 * Founders Competition Multimedia 1998, German Association of Engineers / Electrical Engineering - IT

Baumann holds international patents on array databases.

Research interests
Baumann's current research interests include scalable database and Web service support for large, multi-dimensional arrays, including algebraic modeling, query language, query optimization, system architecture, and applications such as earth sciences and life sciences. As part of this research, standardization of geo raster services is being addressed. As such, it is related to dimensional databases, however with a distinct focus on spatio-temporal, multi-dimensional raster graphics data, rather than business data.

Much of his concrete work is implemented and benchmarked in the framework of the rasdaman array DBMS.