Willem-Jan van den Heuvel

Professor in AI/Data Engineering, Author, Speaker and Entrepreneurial Innovator

Tilburg, North Brabant, Netherlands

About

Prof. Dr. Willem-Jan van den Heuvel is a full professor in AI/Data Engineering and acts as the scientific director of the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS)-DE Unit, which is a collaboration on data science/AI between Tilburg University and the Technical University of Eindhoven (both located in the Netherlands). Over his career, he has established various research institutes including ERISS (European Research Institute on Service Systems), and more recently he was one of the academic architects of JADS, where he led the inception and accreditation of (under-)graduate programs on Data Science, as well as the establishment of research lines revolving around Agrorod, and, Crime and Safety. His research interests are at the cross-junction of cloud-enabled service systems, cyber-physical security, Big data engineering and AI. In particular, his expertise revolves around the following major research themes: serverless computing and FaaS, Big data pipeline and processing architectures, (micro-)service engineering (including service governance), MLOps and DataOps, Blockchain, and legacy system modernization. Over the past 20+ years, he has been teaching several (under-/post) graduate courses in the area of software engineering, object-oriented modelling, business process analysis, advanced resource planning, process and data-modelling, Big data analytics and service-oriented computing. In addition, Willem-Jan has coordinated and taught courses at summer schools (e.g., the Summer school on Service Science), research schools and MBAs, including SIKS, the Rotterdam Business School, the Antwerp Business School, and TIAS. Willem-Jan has (co-)authored over 150+ publications, and written/edited several books, including the MIT Press on Legacy Modernization. He has a long-lasting and very active track record in FP5-7, and H2020 projects (including FP7-COMPAS, FP-7 S-CUBE, H2020 ANITA), where he has been involved as work-package leader, and, scientific (co-)director. Willem-Jan advises various startups and organizations, typically revolving in topics such as safety and security.

Experience

  • Visiting Professor at Sapienza Università di Roma
    May 2022 - Present · 4 yrs 2 mos

  • Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (9 yrs 10 mos)
    • Full Prof. of Data/AI Engineering, Academic Director Data Enginering & Governance Unit @JADS/db
      Sep 2016 - Present · 9 yrs 10 mos

    • Director Of Studies, Research Unit Director "Data & Services"​
      Sep 2016 - Sep 2020 · 4 yrs 1 mo

  • Tilburg University (29 yrs 6 mos)
    • Full Professor in Information Systems
      Jan 2009 - Present · 17 yrs 6 mos

    • Full Professor of Distributed (Service) Systems
      2009 - Present · 17 yrs 6 mos

    • Executive Director of the International Master in Service Engineering (IMSE)
      Jan 2010 - Sep 2016 · 6 yrs 9 mos

  • Visiting Professor at Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines
    Oct 2014 - Jul 2023 · 8 yrs 10 mos

  • Visiting Professor at Politecnico di Milano
    Nov 2022 - Apr 2023 · 6 mos