Awards presented at FRI Day 2025

• Posted On: December 10, 2025
• Posted By: tilen

At the Day of the Faculty of Computer and Information Science of the University of Ljubljana, on 9 December 2025, we awarded the most successful students and employees and highlighted other achievements of the past year.

At the beginning, all award recipients, guests, students, and staff were welcomed by the Vice Dean for Research, Prof. Dr. Miha Moškon, who emphasized the importance of such gatherings for connecting the academic community and for recognizing and sharing the results we achieve together at FRI. He highlighted the growth of the faculty and its expanding role in the research landscape, and stressed that the FRI community reaches higher milestones every year in education, research, and collaboration with industry.

Students who achieved the best academic results in the 2024/25 academic year received a book award, namely the work Forget Everything You Know About Memory. On this occasion, the author of the book, Nik Škrlec, also addressed them in person.

In the professional higher education program Computer and Information Science, the award recipients were:

1. year: Tim Kavčič, Sven Ulčar,
2. year: Tim Thuma, Žan Ambrožič,
3. year: Tjaž Štok, Dime Sazdev, Bojan Dogandžić.

In the university study program Computer and Information Science, the award recipients were:

1. year : Žan Pustoslemšek, Brest Lenarčič,
2. year: Denis Balant, Enej Hudobreznik, Filip Gjorgjeski ,
3. year: Dimitar Trajkov, Samo Golež, Dimitar Djorlev.

In the master’s study program Computer and Information Science, the award recipients were:

1. year: Alen Leban, Maks Požarnik Vavken, Janez Tomšič,
2. year: Jovana Videnović, Gorazd Gorup .

In the interdisciplinary university study program Computer Science and Mathematics, the award recipients were:

1. year: Rok Perko, Tom Hudin,
2. year: Oliver Majer, Dario Vajda, Jakob Degen ,
3. year: Maks Jagodič, Lovro Sikošek, Jernej Oblak.

In the interdisciplinary second-cycle study program Multimedia, the award recipients were:

1. year: Aleksander Osvald,
2. year: Matic Klopčič.

The highest faculty award for students, the Faculty Prešeren Award, was awarded to:

• Blaž Rolih for the work titled SuperSimpleNet: Anomaly Detection Using a Simple Deep Architecture and Semi-Supervised Learning (mentors: Prof. Dr. Danijel Skočaj and assist. Matic Fučka),
• Vid Stropnik for the work titled Graph Analysis of Player Positioning for Pass Prediction in Football Matches (mentor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lovro Šubelj),

• Matjaž Zupančič Muc for the work titled Two-Stage Deep Model for Reconstruction of Geophysical Data (mentors: Prof. Dr. Matej Kristan and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matjaž Ličar),
• Martin Špendl for the work titled Self-Supervised Learning of a Cox Regression Model for Representing Gene Sets in Latent Space (mentor: Prof. Dr. Blaž Zupan).

The University Prešeren Award was awarded to:

• Jovana Videnović for the work titled Visual Object Tracking Based on Memory with Distractor Awareness (mentors: Prof. Dr. Matej Kristan and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alan Lukežič).

Faculty awards for excellence in teaching in the 2024/25 academic year were awarded to:

• assist. Dr. Rok Češnovar ,
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jurij Mihelič.

The President of the FRI Student Council, Matej Ahačič, presented the Student Council awards for Best Professor and Best Teaching Assistant, which were awarded to:

• Prof. Dr. Patricio Bulić, best professor (professional higher education),
• assist. Dr. Aleksandra Franc , best teaching assistant (professional higher education),
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aleksander Sadikov , best professor (university study),
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Damjan Fujs , best teaching assistant (university study),

• Prof. Dr. Peter Peer , best professor (master’s study),
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Žiga Emeršič, best teaching assistant (master’s study).

Special recognition and awards for research work by postgraduate students were awarded to:

• Pavlin Gregor Poličar and Martin Špendl for the conference paper ” Automated Assignment Grading with Large Language Models: Insights from a Bioinformatics Course “, accepted at the ” ISMB/ECCB 2025 ” conference,
• Blaž Rolih for the paper ” Be the Change You Want to See: Revisiting Remote Sensing Change Detection Practices “, published in ” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing “,

• Marko Rus for the paper ” HIDRA3: A Deep-Learning Model for Multipoint Ensemble Sea Level Forecasting in the Presence of Tide Gauge Sensor Failures “, published in ” Geoscientific Model Development “,
• Lidija Stanovnik for multiple papers published in journals including ” Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computing “, ” Computational & Applied Mathematics “, and ” Designs, Codes and Cryptography “,
• Matic Fučka for the conference paper ” SALAD — Semantics-Aware Logical Anomaly Detection “, accepted at the ” International Conference on Computer Vision 2025 “,
• Jer Pelhan for the conference paper “A Novel Unified Architecture for Low-shot Counting by Detection and Segmentation”, accepted at ” Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems 2024 “.

The special award for outstanding research achievement, intended for FRI staff, was awarded to:

• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Damjan Fujs for the paper ” SmartICST: A Smart Information and Cyber Security Training Approach for Older Adults “, published in ” Education and Information Technologies “.

Special recognition for collaboration with industry for successful knowledge transfer and connecting the faculty with companies was awarded to:

• Prof. Dr. Erik Štrumbelj

The quality award for dedicated and high-quality work, reflected in increased satisfaction of staff and students with the service, was awarded to:

• Student Office

The Dean’s award for work in professional services was awarded to:

• Polona Kužnar Matijević,
• Tanita Britovšek.

The award for equality and inclusion was awarded to:

• Vesna Gračner

We also presented all recipients of university awards, which are awarded by the Rector of the University of Ljubljana during University Week upon the proposal of the faculty:

• UL Golden Plaque for individuals for outstanding merit: Prof. Dr. Damjan Vavpotič,
• UL Golden Plaque for a group: High Performance Computing Group: Prof. Dr. Uroš Lotrič, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Iztok Lebar Bajec, Assist. Prof. Dr. Matjaž Pančur, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ratko Pilipović, assist. Dr. Davor Sluga,
• Ceremonial certificate for young higher education teachers and associates: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ratko Pilipović,
• University Prešeren Award: Jovana Videnović (mentors: Prof. Dr. Matej Kristan and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alan Lukežič),
• Ceremonial certificate for students for outstanding academic achievements: Matej Urbas,
• Ceremonial certificate for students for outstanding academic achievements: Jan Vasiljević,
• Outstanding research achievement of UL: Effects of different types of self-regulation supports on learning science with hypermedia: UL FSD, UL FF and UL FRI (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alenka Kavčič, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ciril Bohak, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matevž Pesek, assist. Dr. Žiga Lesar, Prof. Dr. Matija Marolt),
• Award for professional staff: Aleš Grnjak Smonig,
• Award for professional staff: Ana Hvastija.

Congratulations once again to all award recipients!

Photos from the event can be viewed here .