Thomas Santen is Deputy Director of the European Microsoft Innovation Center (EMIC), located in Aachen, Germany. EMIC partners with corporations and academic institutions to drive results from fundamental research into industrial practice. A particular focus lies on embedded systems in domains where European partners are particularly strong, such as industry automation or automotive systems, and on the integration of such systems with classical IT systems. Dr Santen oversees EMIC's relation to academia and research institutions. He leads EMIC's Languages and Tools group.

Prior to joining Microsoft in 2007, Dr Santen was assistant professor at the Software Engineering group of TU Berlin, where he still is a faculty member (Privatdozent).

Dr Santen received a Diploma in Computer Science form the University of Karlsruhe, and a doctorate on the mechanized verification of object-oriented systems of the Technical University of Berlin. His state doctorate at TU Berlin addressed the development of secure IT systems with a particular focus on the preservation of secrecy properties.