Christian Timmerer received his M.Sc. (Dipl.-Ing.) in January 2003, his Ph.D. (Dr.techn.) in June 2006, and his Habilitation (computer science) in June 2014, all from Alpen-Adria-Universität (AAU) Klagenfurt. His doctoral research focused on the adaptation of scalable multimedia content in streaming and constrained environments, while his habilitation addressed adaptive media streaming over HTTP and the quality of sensory experience. He is currently a Full Professor of Multimedia Systems at AAU, Director of the Christian Doppler Laboratory ATHENA, and Director at the Institute of Information Technology (ITEC). His research interests include multimedia systems, immersive multimedia communication, video streaming and adaptation, and Quality of Experience (QoE). In 2012, he co-founded Bitmovin, where he serves as Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) and Head of Research and Standardization.
He has published more than 400 scientific papers in leading journals and conferences and holds 14 patents. He has organized a series of special sessions and special issues in the field. These include the Special Session on Universal Multimedia Access at WIAMIS 2006, the Special Session on MMT/DASH at ACM MMSys 2011 (followed by a special issue in Signal Processing: Image Communication in 2012), a Special Issue on MPEG-V in Signal Processing: Image Communication in 2013, a Special Issue on MulSeMedia in ACM TOMCCAP in 2014, a Special Issue on Adaptive Media Streaming in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications in 2014, a Special Issue on Video Distribution over Future Internet in IEEE JSAC in 2016, a Special Issue on the Best Papers of ACM MMSys 2016 and NOSSDAV 2016 in ACM TOMM, and the invited article “Open Media Compression: Overview, Design Criteria, and Outlook on Emerging Standards” in Proceedings of the IEEE in 2021. He has served as General Chair of WIAMIS 2008, ISMW 2009, EUMOB 2009, AVSTP2P 2010 (co-located with ACM MM 2010), WoMAN 2011 (co-located with IEEE ICME 2011), QoMEX 2013 (where he also served as Steering Committee Chair), QCMan 2014, ACM MMSys 2016, Packet Video 2018, VCIP 2025, and IEEE MMSP 2027.
His editorial service includes membership on the editorial boards of Signal Processing: Image Communication (Elsevier) and Multimedia Tools and Applications (ACM/Springer). Previously, he served on the editorial boards of IEEE Multimedia Magazine, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, and IEEE Computer. Within IEEE, he was Vice-Chair and Director of the Review Board of the IEEE Multimedia Communication Technical Committee, and he was the inaugural Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Special Technical Community on Social Networking (STCSN). He also writes regular columns on MPEG and QoE for the ACM SIGMM Records, where he serves as editor, and is a member of the ACM SIGMM Open Source Software Committee.
Professor Timmerer is a regular reviewer for leading journals, including IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Multimedia Systems Journal, Multimedia Tools and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, and IEEE Communications Magazine. He is also a regular member of the technical program committees of major international conferences such as IEEE MIPR, IEEE ICC, IEEE WoWMoM, IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE VCIP, IEEE Globecom, IEEE ISM, QoMEX, ACM MMSys, ACM MM, ACM NOSSDAV, Packet Video, and IEEE ICME.
He has participated actively in several European Commission–funded research projects, including FP6-IST-DANAE (2004–2006), FP6-IST-ENTHRONE (2006–2008), FP7-ICT-P2P-Next (2008–2012), FP7-ICT-ALICANTE (2010–2013), FP7-ICT-SocialSensor (2010–2014), COST-IC1003-Qualinet (2010–2014), FP7-ICT-ICoSOLE (2013–2016), and Horizon Europe IA SPIRIT (2022–2025). For the ENTHRONE and ALICANTE projects, he served as work package leader and chaired the End-to-End QoS Management Committee. Additionally, he was appointed as an expert member of the FP6-IST-AXMEDIS User Group and as an external expert board member for the same project.
In addition to his academic research and project leadership, Professor Timmerer has contributed extensively to international standardization activities within ISO/IEC MPEG. He served for several years as Head of the Austrian delegation, coordinated several core experiments, co-chaired multiple ad-hoc groups, and acted as editor of MPEG-21 Parts 7 and 8, Digital Item Adaptation and Reference Software, for which he received ISO/IEC Certificates of Appreciation. His more recent contributions include work on MPEG Extensible Middleware (MXM), MPEG-V (Media Context and Control, formerly Information Exchange with Virtual Worlds), Advanced IPTV Terminal (AIT), MPEG Media Transport (MMT), and Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH), where he has also served as editor. He is a member of the Austrian Standards Institute and co-chairs ASI-AG 001 29, the Austrian mirror committee of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29.
From 2008 until 2024, he served as Secretary General of the Förderverein Technische Fakultät at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a member of ACM, with affiliations in the IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Communications Society, IEEE Signal Processing Society, and ACM SIGMM.
Contact:
Tel: +43 463 2700 3621
E-mail: christian(dot)timmerer(at)aau(dot)at
Web/Blog: http://blog.timmerer.com, AAU: http://bit.ly/ctimaau (german)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/timmerer.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiantimmerer/
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0031-5243
Address: Universitätsstrasse 65-67, Klagenfurt, 9020, Austria
Web/Blog: http://blog.timmerer.com, AAU: http://bit.ly/ctimaau (german)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/timmerer.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiantimmerer/
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0031-5243
Address: Universitätsstrasse 65-67, Klagenfurt, 9020, Austria