M.Sc. Katharina Brennig successfully completed her doctoral examination on October 27, 2025, as part of her dissertation entitled:
“Knowledge-Aware Process Mining: Conceptual Foundations and IT Artifacts for Process Mining in Knowledge-Intensive Processes.”
In her dissertation, Ms. Brennig addresses the use of process mining in the context of knowledge-intensive processes. These are business processes that are strongly influenced by the knowledge, experience, and skills of employees and are therefore less structured than standardized, operational business processes. Typical examples include product development, research and development, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of patients. Despite their outstanding importance to organizations, knowledge-intensive processes are often insufficiently supported by IT systems.
In recent years, process mining has become an extremely effective tool for managing highly structured and heavily digitized operational processes. However, the fundamental assumptions of process mining — particularly the complete digital recording of all relevant activities and accompanying information, as well as the frequent repetition of specific activity sequences — conflict with the characteristics of knowledge-intensive processes. Against this background, Ms. Brennig’s dissertation explores, through a series of design-oriented studies, how process mining approaches can be further developed to be successfully applied in knowledge-intensive settings as well.
Katharina Brennig’s dissertation was supervised and reviewed by Prof. Dr. Oliver Müller and Prof. Dr. Christian Janiesch (TU Dortmund). With the successful completion of her defense, she has now taken the final step toward earning her doctorate.
The Chair warmly congratulates her on this outstanding achievement! We are especially delighted that Katharina will remain part of the team after completing her PhD and look forward to the coming years of collaboration in teaching and research.
We wish you continued success and joy on your academic journey, dear Kathi!
