Pieter-Tjerk de Boer

I'm an assistant professor (Dutch: "universitair docent") 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 had a two-month sabbatical at IRISA/INRIA in Rennes, France.

Research

My research concerns a somewhat broad area around telecommunications systems and their mathematical aspects.
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; one PhD student is currently working on applying it in model checking.
Another main topic is measurements on real networks and their interpretation, modeling and use; for the measurements, we have a collaboration with the university's network administrators.

A list of publications is available here.

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

• Daniël Reijsbergen, working on rare-event simulation techniques for model checking (McStores project);
• Anna Kolesnichenko, working on mean-field methods for performance analysis (MATMaM project);
• Wim Korevaar, working on Hermite signals for wireless communications (TSP project);
• Karol Rosen, working on rare-event simulation for non-Markovian queueing networks (TENETS project).

Former PhD students are Tatiana Zaburnenko and Robert Taniman.

Teaching

In the 2012/2013 academic year, I'm responsible for the following (parts of) courses:

• 192620000 Telematics Networks
• 191511410 Algebra en Security (cryptography part)
• 192620300 Performance Evaluation (simulation part)

Furthermore, I'm involved (together with other lecturers) in the following courses:

• 192140400 Telematicaproject
• 192140700 The numbers tell the tale (meten=weten)
• 192150000 Academische Vaardigheden Informatica 1
• 192610000 Telematica-Systemen en -Toepassingen
• 192654000 Network Security (cryptography part)
• 201200103 Smart Environments

I'm on the design teams of the "introduction to computer science" and the "networked systems" modules for the UT's new computer science bachelor curriculum.
I'm also the programme mentor for students following the MSc Telematics study program, and a member of the "examination board" (Dutch: examencommissie) for the computer science and telematics programs.

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. The university's amateur radio club ETGD has its own homepage (in Dutch). 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.

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.

Phone: +31 53 4894327
E-mail: ptdeboer@cs.utwente.nl
Room: Zi-5016

Very short biography