Willibrordus Martinus Pancratius van der Aalst (born 29 January 1966) is a Dutch computer scientist and full professor at RWTH Aachen University, leading the Process and Data Science (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 are composed by four components: task, people ...

, workflow management,

Petri nets A Petri net, also known as a place/transition (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 graph that ...

process mining Process mining is a family of techniques relating the fields of data science and process management to support the analysis of operational processes based on event logs. The goal of process mining is to turn event data into insights and actions. P ...

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 execu ...

s, and

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

. 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. This ...

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 in 1988 at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e), and a PhD in mathematics in 1992 with the thesis "Timed colored Petri nets and their application to logistics" under supervision of Jaap Wessels and

Kees van Hee Kees Max van Hee (born 1946) is a Dutch computer scientist, and Emeritus Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, known for his development of the process modelling tool ExSpecT, and his seminal work on workflow management. Biograph ...

. 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 (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 Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a 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 wealt ...

(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 o ...

(CTRG),

(CITI), Aarhus University (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) 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 Europea ...

). Van der Aalst was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences 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 discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business p ...

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 a ...

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 standards ...

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 sui ...

systems, computer supported cooperative work, web services, 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 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

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 (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 Howard, Former President of the Jama ...

. Other scientific contributions of Van der Aalst are in the fields of Business Process Discovery,

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 execution, and for business process improvement. It can be used to control an autonomous workflow ...

s, the Workflow Management Coalition 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 su ...

. Van der Aalst is an ISI Highly Cited 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 ...

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