KlarText Award 2026 for Dr Daniel Racek

26 October 2026

The Klaus Tschira Foundation has honoured Dr Daniel Racek of the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich for his accessible science communication. The KlarText Award promotes bridging the gap between science and the public and raises awareness of the importance of science communication.

In his doctoral thesis ‘Modern Data Science in Conflict Research’ at LMU, in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich, he investigated how statistical methods, machine learning and AI can be combined with satellite imagery and social media data. The aim: to fill information gaps in wars and better analyse conflict developments.

His award-winning article “Clearing the Data Fog of War” demonstrates how damage to buildings can be identified using freely available Sentinel-1 satellite imagery – even where reliable reports are lacking.

 

Congratulations on this special honour!

 

More on the research:

🔗 Tagesschau
🔗 Newsweek
🔗 PhD thesis

 

Picture: © Niko Bruno da Silva Neithardt / Klaus Tschira Stiftung

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