Willibrordus Martinus Pancratius van der Aalst (born 29 January 1966) is a Dutch computer scientist and full professor at

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), in German ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen'', is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study prog ...

, leading the Process and

Data Science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

(PADS) group. His research and teaching interests include

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...

workflow management Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequen ...

Petri nets A Petri net, also known as a place/transition net (PT net), is one of several mathematical modeling languages for the description of distributed systems. It is a class of discrete event dynamic system. A Petri net is a directed bipartite grap ...

process mining Process mining is a family of techniques for analyzing event data to understand and improve operational processes. Part of the fields of data science and Business_process_management, process management, process mining is generally built on Logging ...

specification language A specification language is a formal language in computer science used during systems analysis, requirements analysis, and systems design to describe a system at a much higher level than a programming language, which is used to produce the exec ...

s, and

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

. He is also known for his work on

workflow patterns A workflow pattern is a specialized form of design pattern as defined in the area of software engineering or business process engineering. Workflow patterns refer specifically to recurrent problems and proven solutions related to the development of ...

Biography and Education

Born in

Eersel Eersel () is a municipality and a town in southern Netherlands in the province of North Brabant. Eersel is situated in the Campine (Kempen) area. Eersel is part of the Acht Zaligheden (Eight Beatitudes) and known for its attractive market. Thi ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, Van der Aalst received an MSc in

computing science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to applied disciplines (including the design an ...

in 1988 at the

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven The Eindhoven University of Technology (), Abbreviation, abbr. TU/e, is a public university, public technical university in the Netherlands, situated in Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its Bachelor of Science, BS ...

(TU/e), and a PhD in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

in 1992 with the thesis "Timed colored Petri nets and their application to logistics" under supervision of Jaap Wessels and Kees van Hee. In 1992 he started working at the Eindhoven University of Technology as an assistant professor for the department of Mathematics and Computing Science, where he headed the Specification and Modeling of Information Systems (SMIS) research group. From 2000 to 2003, he was a part-time full professor at the Computing Science department. And from 2000 to 2006 he was head of the Information Systems department at the Technology Management department of TU/e. Since 2006 he has been full professor at the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of the Eindhoven University of Technology. He also has a part-time appointment in the BPM group of

Queensland University of Technology The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public university, public research university located in the city of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. It has two major campuses, a modern city campus in Gardens Point, Brisbane, Gardens Point ...

(QUT).About Wil van der Aalst
at tue.nl. Accessed May 26, 2009. He has been a visiting professor at

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; ) is both a German public research university in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, and a research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 when the University of Karlsruhe (), founde ...

(AIFB), the

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

(LSDIS),

Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

(WI-II), the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver, and the U ...

(CTRG),

(CITI),

Aarhus University Aarhus University (, abbreviated AU) is a public research university. Its main campus is located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Group, the Guild, and Ut ...

(DAIMI), and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK). He is associate editor for several journals, including "IEEE Transactions on Services Computing", "IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics", "International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management", "International Journal on Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures", "Computers in Industry", and "Transactions on Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency". He is series editor of "Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing" (LNBIP) by Springer, member of the editorial board of "Distributed and Parallel Databases" and "Business and Information Systems Engineering", and member of several steering committees, including "International Conference Series on Business Process Management" (chair), "International Conference Series on Application and Theory of Petri nets" and "International Workshop Series on Web Services and Formal Methods". He is also a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (

Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen The ''Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen'' (Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities), located on the east side of the Spaarne in downtown Haarlem, Netherlands, was established in 1752 and is the oldest society for the ...

) and the Academy of Europe (

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

). Van der Aalst was elected member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

in 2014.

Work

Van der Aalst's research interest is in the fields of

business process management Business process management (BPM) is the discipline in which people use various methods to Business process discovery, discover, Business process modeling, model, Business analysis, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and Business process auto ...

process model The term process model is used in various contexts. For example, in business process modeling the enterprise process model is often referred to as the ''business process model''. Overview Process models are processes of the same nature that ...

workflow management system A workflow management system (WfMS or WFMS) provides an infrastructure for the set-up, performance, and monitoring of a defined sequence of tasks arranged as a workflow application. International standards There are several international standard ...

s, verification techniques,

enterprise resource planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business management software—typically a suit ...

systems, computer supported cooperative work,

web service A web service (WS) is either: * a service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via the Internet, or * a server running on a computer device, listening for requests at a particular port over a n ...

s, business process redesign, resource allocation and interorganizational

business process A business process, business method, or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks performed by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (that serves a particular business g ...

es. He is a strong supporter of

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

. He initiated and led the development of: *the ProM framework, a

tool *

YAWL A yawl is a type of boat. The term has several meanings. It can apply to the rig (or sailplan), to the hull type or to the use which the vessel is put. As a rig, a yawl is a two masted, fore and aft rigged sailing vessel with the mizzen mast ...

, a workflow management system *and several other software tools including Declare, Woflan, XRL, etc. He also initiated the

initiative. This work influenced industry standards such as the

Business Process Execution Language The Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL), commonly known as BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), is an OASIS standard executable language for specifying actions within business processes with web services. Processes ...

(BPEL), the

Business Process Modeling Notation Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a business process model. Originally developed by the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI), BPMN has been maintained by the ...

(BPMN), etc. Van der Aalst's ideas have also influenced various widely used commercial software tools such as Flower, Protos, Futura Reflect, Staffware, WebSphere, and

ARIS Aris or ARIS may refer to: People * Aris (surname) Given name * Aris Alexandrou, Greek writer * Aris Brimanis, ice hockey player * Aris Christofellis, Greek male soprano * Aris Gavelas, Greek sprinter * Aris Konstantinidis, Greek architect * ...

. Other scientific contributions of Van der Aalst are in the fields of

Business Process Discovery Business process discovery (BPD) related to business process management and process mining is a set of techniques that manually or automatically construct a representation of an organisations' current business processes and their major process varia ...

event-driven process chain An event-driven process chain (EPC) is a type of flow chart for business process modeling. EPC can be used to configure enterprise resource planning Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, ...

s, the

Workflow Management Coalition Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) was a consortium formed to define standards for the interoperability of workflow management systems. The coalition was disbanded in 2019 and no longer exists. History The Coalition was founded in May 1993 wi ...

and

XPDL The XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) is a format standardized by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) to interchange business process definitions between different workflow products, i.e. between different modeling tools and management s ...

. Van der Aalst is an

ISI Highly Cited The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysis ...

researcher. According to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

he is among the highest ranked computer scientists in the world. Se
H-index for computer science

Publications

Van der Aalst has published in total more than 400 books, journal papers, book chapters, conference papers, and reports on these topics. Books, a selection: * van der Aalst, Wil, and Kees Max Van Hee.
Workflow management: models, methods, and systems
'' MIT press, 2002; 2004. * Dumas, Marlon, Wil M. van der Aalst, and Arthur H. Ter Hofstede. ''Process-aware information systems: bridging people and software through process technology.'' John Wiley & Sons, 2005. * van der Aalst, Wil. ''Process mining: discovery, conformance and enhancement of business processes.'' Springer Science & Business Media, 2011. Articles, a selection: * van der Aalst, Wil MP.
The application of Petri nets to workflow management
" ''Journal of circuits, systems, and computers'' 8.01 (1998): 21–66. * Wil van der Aalst, Arthur H.M. Hofstede, Bartek Kiepuszewski, and Alistair P. Barros (2003)
"Workflow Patterns"
In: ''Distributed and Parallel Databases'' 14 (1): pp. 5–51. . * van der Aalst, Wil MP, Arthur HM Ter Hofstede, and Mathias Weske. "Business process management: A survey." ''Business process management.'' Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2003. 1–12. * van der Aalst, Wil MP, and Arthur HM Ter Hofstede.
YAWL: yet another workflow language
" ''Information systems'' 30.4 (2005): 245–275.

References

External links

Homepage Wil van der Aalst
at Eindhoven University of Technology. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aalst, Wil van der 1966 births Living people Dutch computer scientists Information systems researchers Eindhoven University of Technology alumni Academic staff of the Eindhoven University of Technology Enterprise modelling experts Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of Academia Europaea Software engineering researchers Academic staff of the University of Queensland People from Eersel Academic staff of RWTH Aachen University