Pieter-Tjerk de Boer

I'm an associate professor (Dutch: "universitair hoofddocent") in the Design and Analysis of Communication Systems (DACS) group at the Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science department of the University of Twente.
Before this, I studied physics (graduating in 1996), and obtained a PhD in computer science in 2000, both also at the University of Twente. In 2007, I did a two-month sabbatical at IRISA/INRIA in Rennes, France.

Research

My research is in the broad area of computer and telecommunications systems.
One main topic (also the topic of my own PhD thesis) is rare-event simulation, motivated by the need to estimate small probabilities (of undesirable events such as packet loss and call blocking) in queueing models of telecommunication systems. Techniques from rare-event simulation also have broader applications.
On a broader scale, I'm interested in many aspects of communication systems and networks, in particular their mathematical aspects, such as performance and correctness.
Furthermore, I have an active interest in many aspects of radio, such as Software-Defined Radio technology and propagation phenomena.

A list of publications is available here.

I'm currently (co)advising the following PhD students:

• Masoud Abbasi Alaei, working on beamforming algorithms in the MIRABeam project.

Former (co)advised PhD students are:

• Wouter de Vries thesis on Improving anycast with measurements defended in December 2019.
• Anne Buijsrogge thesis on Rare event simulation for non-Markovian tandem queues defended in June 2019 (NWO-funded TENETS project).
• Luuk Hendriks: thesis on Measuring IPv6 Resilience and Security defended in January 2019.
• Wim Korevaar: thesis on Hermite-based communications; a time-frequency perspective defended in June 2016 (TSP project).
• Anna Kolesnichenko: thesis on Model-Checking Mean-Field Models: Algorithms & Applications defended in December 2014 (NWO-funded MATMaM project).
• Daniël Reijsbergen: thesis on Efficient Simulation Techniques for Stochastic Model Checking defended in December 2013 (NWO-funded McStores project).
• Tatiana Zaburnenko: thesis on Efficient heuristics for simulating rare events in queueing networks defended in January 2008 (NWO-funded).

Teaching

In the 2023/2024 academic year, I'm responsible for the following TOM (Twente Education Model) modules and (parts of) courses:

• 201700139 Pearls of Computer Science (computer science module 1), as teacher of one "pearl", supervisor of one of the final projects, and member of design team
• 201600146 Network Systems (computer science module 3, and electrical engineering elective module 7b), as coordinator, member of design team and core teacher.
• 192620300 Performance Evaluation (together with Hans van den Berg)
• 201700077 Advanced Networking (together with Cristian Hesselman, Geert Heijenk and Roland van Rijswijk-Deij)

Previous courses I've (co)taught include Telematics Networks, Network Security, Algebra and Security, Academic Skills; most of these have been phased-out with the introduction of the new TOM bachelor programs.

I'm the programme mentor for students following the Internet Science and Technology track within the computer science master program, and the Communication Networks specialization within the electrical engineering master program. For a long-time I was chairman of the "examination board" (Dutch: examencommissie) for the computer science programs, and nowadays I'm a member of the university's Board of Appeal for Examinations (Dutch: College van Beroep voor de Examens).

In 2014, 2017 and 2020 I was awarded the yearly "Onderwijsprijs" (teaching award) by the UT's computer science students.

The "challenges" I've developed for our computer networking classes are available also for use at other universities (thanks to funding by SURF's Open en online onderwijs program); please contact me if interested!

Amateur radio

My main hobby is amateur radio. Information on some of my amateur-radio related projects, including several computer programs for Linux and other unix-like systems, is available at my amateur radio page and at https://pa3fwm.nl.
Perhaps the most visible result of my amateur radio activities is the WebSDR system, allowing many users to simultaneously use and tune a radio receiver via the internet. Its popularity led to me winning one of the 2022 UT in the media awards.
Sometimes these supposedly amateur activities also leads to scientific work, such as my 2018 publication on ionospheric cross modulation.
B.t.w., the university of Twente has an amateur radio club, the ETGD.

Miscellaneous stuff

A couple of things I wrote about miscellaneous subjects, that perhaps might be of interest to someone.

Contact

Dr. ir. Pieter-Tjerk de Boer
University of Twente
Design and Analysis of Communication Systems
Faculty for Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.

E-mail: p.t.deboer@utwente.nl
Phone: +31 53 4894327 (but since the UT's transition to MS-Teams, I'm not usually reachable by phone)
Office: Zi-5102