Markus Zanker is a professor at the Faculty of Computer Science, where he also served as vice dean for studies and director for study programmes. Before moving to Bolzano he was an associate professor at the Alpen-Adria-Universitaet Klagenfurt, Austria. His research focuses on knowledge-based information systems supporting decision making processes such as personalized information filtering and retrieval, product recommendation, conversational sales advisor systems and product configurators. Until 2013 Markus Zanker was also a co-founder and director of a recommendation service company for more than 10 years.