Professor Dr Anja Feldmann

Research Priorities: Measuring internet traffic, locating network bottlenecks, programmable networks, broadband access evolution, cloud networks, ISP application collaboration, community-inspired optimisation
Anja Feldmann is a German computer scientist. She is one of the world’s leading internet experts. Her combination of basic and practical research into measuring, analysing, and modelling internet traffic have played a significant role in the ongoing development of the internet, particularly with respect to security and reliability, and form the basis of the internet’s future structure.
The internet in its original form was developed for a relatively small number of participants. Over the years, it has been possible to expand and modify the existing structures so that they can also function with far more information packages. Anja Feldmann has played a key role in this development. Drawing on methods to measure internet traffic and to analyse transport protocols, she researches the dynamics of data transmission and thus identifies structural bottlenecks. Her work forms the basis of methods to compress and send updated webpages that are now found in all web browsers and servers. She played a central role in creating the software package Netscope, which makes it possible to visualise and optimise traffic within an internet service. On this basis, Anja Feldmann was the first to create a traffic matrix for the entire internet.
However, current methods to expand the internet are increasingly reaching the limits of their capabilities. Anja Feldmann’s research therefore also examines the question of how an internet must be better structured so as to function quickly, reliably, and safely even for huge numbers of participants. One idea is to apportion different levels of quality and priority to the transport of different types of information, for example phone calls compared to downloading a video. Analysing the forms of Web 2.0 network use, such as messaging services or social networks, also helps her make fundamental improvements to internet architecture. Security issues are key to her research. She concerns herself with, for example, systems that defend against targeted attacks on high-speed networks.
Anja Feldmann’s work is characterised by a combination of theory and practice that is unique in her field even at a global level. She laid the foundation for this approach during her research activities at the US communications company AT&T. At the Technische Universität Berlin she has access to a globally unique experimental environment for open, self-organised, wireless networks.