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 Resume / CV |
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Summary
I am a computer scientist who is passionate about technology and engineering. I strongly believe in using (and learning) the right tool for the job and am not married to any kind of language, framework, or operating system.
My interest lies in multi-disciplinary work, using techniques from computer science fields (software engineering, machine learning/AI, distributed systems/HPC, web development, …) to empower engineers tackle their real world design, modeling, and optimization problems.
This has brought me into contact with many different disciplines, researchers, companies, and applications, and led to a considerable amount of international collaborative experience. I have worked in research labs in Belgium, Poland, South Africa, USA, Canada, and the UK.
Institutions I have worked with include: Rolls-Royce, Freescale, BMW, Arcelor Mittal, NXP Semiconductors, Airbus, CISRO, and RWTH Aachen.
I am also the lead architect of the SUrrogate MOdeling (SUMO) Toolbox, used in various universities and companies for design space exploration and optimization.
Technologies I have worked with include: Matlab, Java, C++, C#, Python, Django, Linux, Postgres, MySQL, SQLServer, Windows Workflow, Mediawiki, Ant, Eclipse, Git, Visual Studio, Bash, jQuery, RabbitMQ, Redis, ADS Momentum, Pacelab, SolidWorks, FP, Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines, Kriging, Virtual Box, Protocol Buffers, ASP.NET, Drupal, Subversion, KDE, Arduino, LaTeX/LyX, evolutionary algorithms, Knockoutjs, Bootstrap,Torque, ANSYS, Fluent, …
Interests
As well as the topics that are discussed on Hacker News, Reddit and Slashdot, my professional interests lie the intersection of computer science and engineering. The aerospace, marine, and automotive domains fascinate me especially.
Particular topics of interest include:
- Computational Engineering: The application of state of the art computer science techniques and tools in order to help engineers solve challenging design, modeling and optimization problems in science and engineering (e.g., CAE).
- Software engineering: Problem driven software development with the goal of realizing clear benefits to the application domain. Focus on clean, maintainable design, test-driven development, rapid prototyping, and using the right tool for the right job.
- High Performance Computing: Cloud-, Grid- and cluster computing, middleware, distributed resource management & discovery, data management, NoSQL, Map-Reduce, …
- Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning, Neural Networks (MLP, SOM, Deep Belief Nets, …), Evolutionary Algorithms (GA, GP, ES, …), Support Vector Machines, data mining (clustering, feature selection, …), self organization, …
Additionally, I have a strong interest in projects with a social, humanitarian, and/or educational dimension and am a strong supporter of organizations such as Kiva, Engineers without borders, and Random Hacks of Kindness. I also regularly volunteer for outreach activities to help with the dissemination of our research to schools and the general public.
Biography
Dirk Gorissen received his M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of Antwerp (UA) in 2004. In 2005 he worked as a PhD student in the Computational Modeling and Programming (CoMP) research group researching lightweight desktop grids and related High Performance Computing topics. During this time he also worked as a visiting research associate at the Distrbuted Computing Laboratory of Emory University, Atlanta, USA. There, for half a year, he worked on distributed locking algorithms and integration of heterogeneous grid information systems.
On his return he joined the Computer Modeling and Simulation (COMS) research group (now merged with CoMP), supported by a research project of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO). In the meantime, from 2006 to 2007, he was also enrolled part time in the Master of Artificial Intelligence programme offered by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL). He graduated successfully in July 2007.
Starting from December 2007 he was active as a PhD student in the SUrrogate MOdeling Lab in the INTEC Broadband Communication Networks (IBCN) research group at Ghent University. There he worked on surrogate modeling methods for computer aided engineering and optimization. During this time he was also a research visitor at the University of Technology of Gdansk, Poland, and Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In addition he was a member of IBBT, an internationally recognized multidisciplinary ICT research center. He also remained affiliated with the CoMP group at the University of Antwerp.
In October 2008 Dirk was awarded a research scholarship from the Scientific Research Fund Flanders to cover a 6 month research visit to the Dept. of Electronics at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. There he worked on evolutionary knowledge based modeling of nonlinear devices. In March 2010 he successfully defended his dissertation, thus obtaining a PhD in Engineering Science from Ghent University.
Starting February 2010 he joined the Computational Engineering and Design Group at School of Engineering and the Environment of Southampton University with close ties to the Airbus Technology Centre for Aeroacoustics and Noise, the Rolls Royce Centre for Computational Engineering, and the Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing. At the CEDG he is responsible for the design and architecture of a software design suite for civilian UAVs. During the project his tools helped design multiple UAVs that flew successfully, including the worlds first fully 3D printed aircraft.
Finally, throughout his career he has always volunteered for outreach programmes. He has helped disseminate research to secondary schools, charities, and the general public and has participated in multiple hackathon-type events with a social dimension.
