Academics and PhD Students from the University of Bucharest among winners of ANIS grants. The Awards were granted during the ANIS Scholarship Gala on Thursday, November 7, 2024

Two faculty members from the University of Bucharest, lecturer Ana-Sabina Uban, PhD, and assistant lecturer Ciprian-Mihai Ceaușescu, PhD, teaching staff at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, as well as Mădălina-Andreea Șerban, doctoral student at the Faculty of Business and Administration, have each received a scholarship out of the 15 awarded by the Employer’s Association of the Software snd Services Industry (ANIS) at the 2024 edition of the ANIS Scholarship Gala.

Aditionally, a project submitted by Claudiu-Cristian Papasteri, PhD, teaching staff at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, was one of the 26 final ones in the competition. A record total of 67 projects were submited by asisstants, lecturers, and doctoral students from across various Romanian university centers since the program’s founding.

The event took place on Thursday, November 7, 2024, in the Aula Magna of the Politehnica University of Bucharest.

The 15 grants, each amounting to 5000 euros, were awarded for the best courses/ tehnological projects that were newly-introduced or upgraded during the 2024-2025 academic year, in fields such as Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IoT), HealthTech și Tech for All.

The jury also included two professors from the University of Bucharest, Paul Irofti, Phd, and Radu Gramatovici, PhD, teaching staff at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, as well as other professors from some of the most well-known unversities in Romania: Lenuța Alboaie, from the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Răzvan Bologa from the Academy of Economic Studies, Cosmin Bonchiș from the West University of Timișoara, Vasile Manta from the Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași, Simona Motogna from the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Răzvan Rughiniș from the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Honoriu Vălean from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Radu Vasiu  from the Politehnica University of Timișoara și Titus Bălan from the Transilvania University of Brașov.

Moreover, the jury included representatives of nationally and internationally renowned companies, among which we recount Ovidiu Dan, Head of Big Data and Cybersecurity Eviden Romania, and Ion Moldoveanu, Technology / Program Director – Compliance Technology Deutsche Bank.

More details on the winners

• Lecturer Ana-Sabina Uban, PhD, teaching staff at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Bucharest, won a scholarship in the Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning category with the project “LLMs & cognition (Large Language Models and Human Cognition)”. In 2024, Ana-Sabina Uban also received Third Prize for “Young Researchers in Science and Engineering”, offered by the Cluj-Napoca City Hall and professor Rada Flavia Mihalcea, from the University of Michigan. The winner’s main areas of research are Natural Language Processing (NLP) in psychology and linguistics, historical computational linguistics, distributional semantics, multilingualism; cognitive aspects of AI models, and she is also interested in detecting mental health disorders with the help of new technologies. She teaches Bio-medical NLP (in English), Practical Introduction to Machine Learning (in English), Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing 1, Natural Language Processing 2 laboratories. Information about the biography and publications of Ana-Sabina Uban can be accessed here and here.

• Ciprian-Mihai Ceaușescu, assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Bucharest won a scholarship in the Big Data category of the competition, with his project “Automatic Leaning Laboratory (Machine Learning)”. The laureate merges his teaching responsibilities with his experiences as a software engineer. Within FMI, he teaches Computer Vision seminars, software development methods, algorithm programming, machine learning. Information about the biography and publications of Ciprian-Mihai Ceaușescu can be accessed here and here.
• Mădălina-Andreea Șerban, PhD student at the Faculty of Administration and Business, is a pediatric surgeon with experience in hospitals in Bucharest, Paris, London and Luxembourg, who developed a technology startup that offers children suffering from chronic diseases and their parents access to information and online consultations. She works at the Marie Skłodowska Curie Children’s Clinical Hospital in Bucharest. After graduating from the Carol Davila Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, he followed, simultaneously with his residency in Pediatric Surgery, a master’s program in Behavioral Economics at the Faculty of Administration and Business, after which he continued with a doctorate. At the end of his master’s degree, his dissertation titled Technology adoption in healthcare – a behavioral understanding of patients‘ perspective was included in the top five best dissertation works signed by graduates of the Behavioral Economics master’s program, class of 2022 – 2024. The outstanding academic performance was rewarded by Behavioral Economics Hub, with the support of the National Union of Insurance and Reinsurance Companies of Romania – UNSAR, in a gala held at the UNSAR headquarters. Information about the biography and publications of Mădălina-Andreea Șerban can be accessed here.

It is not the first time that UB representatives have been awarded prizes in the competition.

During the 2022 edition of the “ANIS Scholarships” Gala, lecturer Bogdan Oprea, PhD from the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, and lecturer Șerban Zanfirescu, PhD from the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, obtained one of the 11 scholarships offered by the Software and Services Industry Employers’ Association.

Also, in previous editions of the competition, UB won several “ANIS” scholarships.

Thus, at the 2020 edition, Paul Irofti, PhD and Ciprian Păduraru, PhD, both teaching staff at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of UB, obtained two of the “ANIS Scholarships” in the Cybersecurity and Machine Learning categories.

In 2019, Ruxandra Olimid, PhD and Sergiu Nisioi, PhD, also from the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of UB, won the ANIS Scholarships in the Cybersecurity categories.

At the same time, in 2018, at the first edition of the ANIS Scholarships Gala, Bogdan Alexe, PhD, teaching stuff from the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of UB, received one of the 10 ANIS scholarships in the Health Tech category.

More information about the laureates can be accessed on the UB website . 

335,000 euros: the value of the scholarships awarded in the previous 6 editions

In the last six years, through the ANIS Scholarships program, 67 educational projects have benefited from sponsorships, which have obtained grants with a cumulative value of 335,000 euros. In total, in the previous editions, 211 projects were registered, coming from 51 faculties, from 14 university centers. At the same time, the program generated several collaborations between companies and academia on R&D projects.

More information about ANIS

The Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry (ANIS) is the representative association of the IT industry in Romania.

ANIS has over 150 member companies, is a promoter of digitalization and represents the interests of the IT industry for 25 years, being a dialogue partner that can contribute to the creation of public policies that facilitate the exploitation of technology for socio-economic development.

More details about the events and projects carried out by ANIS can be consulted on the association’s website .