Wil van der Aalst

Prof. Wil van der Aalst is a full professor at RWTH Aachen University leading the Process and Data Science (PADS) group. He holds part-time affiliations with multiple institutions, including the Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik (FIT), Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e), and Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Additionally, he is a distinguished fellow of Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) and serves on the Board of Governors of Tilburg University.

His research focuses on process mining, leveraging business process management, Petri nets, and process modeling to analyze and optimize workflows. His work intersects with software engineering, big data, and data engineering, emphasizing the application of data science to process-aware systems.

Wil van der Aalst has been recognized with numerous scientific awards, including the prestigious Alexander-von-Humboldt Professorship (2018), doctor honoris causa from Hasselt University (2012), and Distinguished University Professor title at TU/e (2013). He is an IFIP Fellow and elected member of several European academies.

He has co-chaired major academic conferences such as Business Process Management, IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, and Petri Nets. His editorial contributions span journals like Business & Information Systems Engineering and IEEE Transactions on Services Computing. He advises organizations including Celonis and Fluxicon and has been cited over 100,000 times (h-index 148).