ITU secures prestigious DDSA fellowship for foundational research in temporal data
Highly competitive national grant awarded to postdoc Sampson Wong will strengthen ITU’s position in algorithmic research and data science.
Eva RotenbergResearchalgorithmsgrants
Written 30 June, 2026 07:07 by Theis Duelund Jensen
The IT University of Copenhagen (ITU) has been awarded a prestigious Danish Data Science Academy (DDSA) Fellowship for a postdoctoral project in fundamental computer science. The fellowship, granted to Sampson Wong under the supervision of Professor Eva Rotenberg, includes DKK 1,365,000 and fully funds two years of research. Only six postdoctoral fellowships are awarded nationally each year.
The project, Fundamental Algorithms for Temporal Data Mining, addresses one of the core challenges in data science: how to efficiently analyse and extract insight from vast and growing streams of time-stamped data.
Building the foundations for future data science
From wearable health sensors and electronic health records to environmental monitoring and biological experiments, modern data is inherently temporal. These time-stamped data streams hold immense potential for scientific discovery and data-driven decision-making—but they also pose significant computational challenges.
Sampson Wong’s project focuses on developing new algorithmic foundations to make temporal data more tractable and useful. The research will both compress large data streams into manageable representations and develop methods for discovering hidden patterns within them.
“My work is about creating the fundamental building blocks that other data scientists can rely on,” says Sampson Wong. “There’s an enormous amount of time-series data being collected, and while that opens up new possibilities, it also makes analysis more computationally demanding. We need algorithms that are both efficient and robust to keep up.”
The project centres on two key advances: efficient compression of temporal data to reduce memory demands without losing essential information and new clustering methods that can identify recurring patterns in subsequences, rather than only across entire datasets
Together, these contributions aim to deliver a flexible and durable toolkit for analysing temporal data across disciplines.
Strengthening ITU’s research leadership
The fellowship not only supports cutting-edge research but also contributes to ITU’s broader strategic ambitions within theoretical computer science and computational geometry.
Professor Eva Rotenberg highlights the importance of foundational research in a rapidly evolving data landscape:
“Sampson Wong is a rising star in computational geometry, and it is very well-deserved that he gets this highly competitive and prestigious award. We need strong theoretical foundations if we want to push the boundaries of data science and applied computing. I’m very pleased that DDSA recognises this by funding a fully theory-oriented project. Bridging the gap between theory and application is essential if we are to create lasting impact.”
She adds that the project aligns with ITU’s long-term vision:
“This is another important step towards positioning ITU as a leading research environment for computational geometry in Denmark. It reflects a shared ambition to build excellence in fundamental algorithmic research.”
Long-term impact across domains
Although the project is rooted in basic research, its potential applications span a wide range of fields. More efficient and reliable methods for analysing temporal data could support advancements in healthcare, climate science, and beyond—where understanding patterns over time is critical.
Wong emphasises that such applications often emerge in unexpected ways:
“Fundamental research can travel far. Similar work I’ve done in the past has been picked up in areas as different as political science and environmental analysis. The goal here is to build methods that others can adapt and apply in ways we may not even anticipate yet.”
By investing in foundational algorithms, ITU and DDSA are contributing to the long-term infrastructure of data-driven research—ensuring that society can continue to benefit from the rapidly growing volumes of data.
Theis Duelund Jensen, Press Officer, phone +45 2555 0447, email thej@itu.dk