The Academic Semester Celebration—the department's semi‑annual graduation ceremony—brings together every graduate of the past semester (bachelor, master, and PhD) who receives their degree on stage, handed over by the dean or the faculty member who supervised their final thesis. The afternoon is set in a celebratory atmosphere, features a keynote address, it includes performances by the department’s band “THE CONVOCATIONS,” and the presentation of awards to outstanding graduates.

At this ceremony, our group was proud to see two of its members recognized for exceptional scholarly work:

• Lukas Kawollek – a recently joined PhD candidate who previously completed his master's with us – was honored with the VDE Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement (“Förderpreis für herausragende Studienleistungen”), recognizing the best master's degree (overall grade) awarded in the department over the past year. The award is presented jointly by the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the VDE Bezirksverein Kassel e.V., the regional branch of the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies, which supports excellence in engineering education and research.
• Paul Mertens – a master's student in our group – received the Peter Swicinsky Memorial Prize for Outstanding Bachelor and Master Theses. Paul earned the prize for his bachelor thesis, which was carried out in our group and later presented as a poster paper at the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) in Madrid in 2024.

Both awards highlight the high quality of research and education within our group and underscore the relevance of our work to the broader engineering community. Congratulations to Lukas and Paul for their well‑deserved recognitions!