Hendrik (Henk) Koppelaar (born February 1953) is a Dutch computer scientist and emeritus professor at the

Delft University of Technology Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...

, knows for his work in

knowledge engineering Knowledge engineering (KE) refers to all technical, scientific and social aspects involved in building, maintaining and using knowledge-based systems. Background Expert systems One of the first examples of an expert system was MYCIN, an appl ...

.Henk Koppelaar
at ''chessprogramming.org''. Accessed 11-02-2021. Koppelaar started his studies at the

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

in 1971, where he graduated in

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

in 1976. In 1981 he started his graduate study at the University of Amsterdam, where he obtained his PhD in Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services in 1984. Under supervision of

Gideon J. Mellenbergh Gideon Jan (Don) Mellenbergh (9 August 1938 – 27 March 2021) was a Dutch psychologist, who was Professor of Psychological methods at the University of Amsterdam, known for his contribution in the field of psychometrics, and Social Research Met ...

and J.K. de Vree (1938-2017) he wrote his thesis on the theory and new ways of data processing in modeling in the social sciences. Koppelaar was appointed Professor at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

in 1986. In 1986 he moved to Delft University of Technology, where he served as Professor of the Computer Science until 2004. In 1986 he was founder of the Dutch Artificial Intelligence Association, which merged into the Belgian Dutch Artificial Intelligence Association in 1988. In the 1970s he had joined the

Dutch Systems Group The Dutch Systems Group, or ''Netherlands Society for Systems Research'' or ''Systeemgroep Nederland'', is a society in the Netherlands for systems theory, and its applications. Systems theoretical problems the society focuses on are, for example ...

, where he served as editor of its newsletter from 1973 to 1988. Early research of Koppelaar focussed on automatic recognition of handprinted characters, where they had developed a method of syntactic

pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphi ...

using

fuzzy set In mathematics, fuzzy sets (a.k.a. uncertain sets) are sets whose elements have degrees of membership. Fuzzy sets were introduced independently by Lotfi A. Zadeh in 1965 as an extension of the classical notion of set. At the same time, defined a ...

theory. Their research had focussed on handwritten capitals. Later in the 1980s his research had focussed the application of

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have co ...

in the

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

. In 1994 he published a methodological analysis of these applications.

Selected publications

* Koppelaar, Henk. ''Twee nieuwe wegen voor modelbouw in de sociale wetenschappen: theorie- en dataverwerking.'' PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1986. Articles, a selectionHenk Koppelaar
at dbnl.uni-trier.de. * Kickert, Walter JM, and Henk Koppelaar. "Application of fuzzy set theory to syntactic pattern recognition of handwritten capitals." IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 2 (1976): 148–151. * Faber, Jan, and Henk Koppelaar. "Chaos theory and social science: a methodological analysis." Quality and Quantity 28.4 (1994): 421–433.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koppelaar, Henk 1953 births Living people Dutch computer scientists Utrecht University alumni University of Amsterdam alumni Delft University of Technology alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam Academic staff of the Delft University of Technology