It is with deep regret that we announce Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Matthias Jarke’s passing on March 21, 2024. Prof. Jarke served as a Department Editor for BISE for many years and was one of the pioneers in Information Systems and Data Management. After completing a double degree in Computer Science and Business Administration at the University of Hamburg, Jarke earned his doctorate in Business Informatics and held professorships at the Stern School of Management at New York University and at the University of Passau before joining RWTH Aachen University in 1991. He played a key role in developing the Computer Science Department in Aachen and was founding director of the Bonn-Aachen International Graduate Center for Information Technology (B-IT). He also served for many years as the Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, steering the institute towards groundbreaking achievements.

He worked on a wide variety of topics in Computer Science, including metadata management, data quality, conceptual modeling, requirements engineering, information systems engineering, query optimization, recommender systems, and cooperative information systems. He also played a key role in connecting the Wirtschaftsinformatik-community with other branches of Computer Science; see, for example, his article “Perspectives in the Interplay Between Business and Information Systems Engineering and Computer Science” in the inaugural issue of BISE from 2009. As President of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI), he organized the Computer Science Year 2006. He was a fellow of the ACM, a member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering, and won the Peter Chen Award. These and many more awards reflect the impact of his work.

Beyond his scientific and organizational achievements, Prof. Jarke was a passionate mentor. He always had great visions and, at the same time, an open ear for other researchers of all kinds – regardless of their career stage, origin, or background. We mourn the loss of a passionate scientist, a truly valued colleague with an exceptional grasp of the key issues in and around our field. Our thoughts are with the family of Prof. Matthias Jarke, his wife Sibylle Hentsch-Jarke, and their children during this difficult time. He will be deeply missed by the BISE community.


Wil M. P. van der Aalst

and the Editorial Board of BISE