In 2017, prof.dr.ir. Wil van der Aalst received the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Professorship from the German Government after a nomination by the Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochschule in Aachen. In January, he moved to Aachen to start his new Process and Data Science group.

Wil has been part of Eindhoven University of Technology for over thirty years. He played an important role in the development of information systems research at our university, and he shaped the international research field of business process management during his time at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences. After his transfer to Mathematics and Computer Science in 2006, Wil’s focus shifted to data science, where he developed the research field of process mining, focusing on the interplay between business processes and event data.

At RWTH in Aachen, Wil starts a new group on Process and Data Science group (PADS) and to congratulate Wil on his achievements, we hereby cordially invite you to attend the symposium with the title:

For the symposium, we invited Emile Aarts, Boudewijn van Dongen, Kees van Hee, Hajo Reijers, Anne Rozinat and Jack van Wijk as speakers, all of whom played an important role in Wil’s academic life. They all present their work and the influence Wil played in that, related to the theme of the day. And at the end of the symposium, Wil has the final word.

“De Telegraaf” referred to Wil as “The Lionel Messi of computer science” and “a wizard with big data”. While probably true, we know Wil as a hardworking professional, an outstanding scientist, and a warm colleague with a good sense of humor!

Pictures

All pictures ©Bart van Overbeeke.

Slides