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 (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch ...

, leading the Process and

Data Science Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a br ...

(PADS) group. His research and teaching interests include

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, information storage, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems a ...

workflow management A workflow consists of an orchestrated and repeatable pattern 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 sequence of ...

, Petri nets, process mining, specification languages, and

simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...

. 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

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 ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, van der Aalst received an MSc in

computing science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

in 1988 at the

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven The Eindhoven University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven), abbr. TU/e, is a public technical university in the Netherlands, located in the city of Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its BSc a ...

(TU/e), and a PhD in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

in 1992 with the thesis "Timed colored Petri nets and their application to logistics" under supervision of

Jaap Wessels Jacobus (Jaap) Wessels (19 January 1939 – 30 July 2009) was a Dutch mathematician and Professor of Stochastic Operations Research at the Eindhoven University of Technology, Jo van Nunen and Jaap van der Wal. "Jaap Wessels–his life with stocha ...

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 Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...

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

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; german: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 w ...

(AIFB), the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

(LSDIS), Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (WI-II), the

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

(CTRG),

(CITI),

Aarhus University Aarhus University ( da, Aarhus Universitet, abbreviated AU) is a public research university with its main campus located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Gr ...

(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 sci ...

) and the Academy of Europe ( Academia Europaea). Van der Aalst was elected member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

in 2014.

Work

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

, business process management,

, Petri nets,

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 ar ...

s, workflow management systems, verification techniques, process mining, enterprise resource planning systems, computer supported cooperative work, web services,

business process redesign Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes within an organization. BPR aims to help organizations fundam ...

, resource allocation and interorganizational

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

es. He is a strong supporter of

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

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

, 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. Proces ...

(BPEL), the Business Process Modeling Notation (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 Howard, Former President of the Jamai ...

. 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 chains, the

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

and XPDL. 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 scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

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 Eindhoven University of Technology faculty Enterprise modelling experts Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Software engineering researchers University of Queensland faculty People from Eersel RWTH Aachen University faculty