Tarek AlSkaif Editor

Bedir Tekinerdogan is a full professor and chair of the Information Technology group at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. He received his MSc degree (1994) and a PhD degree (2000) in Computer Science, both from the University of Twente, The Netherlands. From 2003 until 2008 he was a faculty member at University of Twente, after which he joined Bilkent University until 2015. He has more than 20 years of experience in software engineering research and education. His main research includes the engineering of smart software-intensive systems. In particular, he has focused on and is interested in software architecture design, software product line engineering, model-driven development, parallel computing, cloud computing and system of systems engineering. He has been active in dozens of national and international research and consultancy projects with various large software companies whereby he has worked as a principal researcher and leading software/system architect. He has developed and taught more than 15 different academic software engineering courses and has provided software engineering courses to more than 50 companies in The Netherlands, Germany and Turkey. Dr. Aksit is currently a Full Professor at TOBB ETÜ and the Director of the Smart-Cities and Digital Ecosystems Research Lab. He holds an M.Sc. degree from the Eindhoven University of Technology and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Twente. He was Full Professor and Software Engineering Chair at the University of Twente (2000-2019). As a visiting scientist, in 1989 he was at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Laboratory, New York, in 1993 at the University of Tokyo, in 1994 at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and in 2019 at University of Malaya at KL. He and the members of the group were the pioneers of aspect-oriented programming (Sina & Composition Filters), synthesis based controlled problem-solving techniques, fuzzy-logic based techniques to modelling software design heuristics and processes, software architecture design methods and software metrics. He has given courses in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and in the US. He has organized special training programs for multi-national companies. He has designed various large-scale software architectures, which some of them are currently being utilized in products. Some of the research tools developed by the chair are now being used in some industrial applications. He has been working as a consultant for Dutch Ministry of Traffic, Dutch Tax office, Ericsson, Philips, ASML, Océ, Thales, Beko-Grundig, TAI, Aselsan, Havelsan, Roketsan, Capgemini, Siemens, Softtech. He has served in the review and strategic planning for various EU projects. With the TÜBITAK grant, " Outstanding International Researchers“, he has established the Smart-City Research Lab in Ankara. As an application of smart-City systems, he has recently focused on managing pandemic disasters. To this aim, he has pioneered the establishment of the Alliance on Digital Management of Pandemic Disasters. Dr. Catal is Professor of Computer Science at Qatar University, Doha. He obtained his PhD degree in Computer Engineering from Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul in 2008. Prior to joining Qatar University, he worked as a Full Professor in the department of Computer Engineering, Bahcesehir University in Istanbul (2020- 2021), as a full-time faculty member at Wageningen University & Research (WUR), The Netherlands before joining Bahcesehir University, and as Associate Professor and Head of Department, Computer Engineering at Istanbul Kultur University Before joining the university, he worked 8 years at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), Information Technologies Institute as a Senior Researcher and Project Manager. His research interests include deep learning, machine learning, natural language processing, software engineering, software testing, and software architecture. Dr Hurst is an Assistant Professor in Data Science in the Information Technology Group. He has over 70 international publications in the areas of data science, creative technologies, critical infrastructure protection, simulation and 3D graphics. He has held several grants as Principal Investigator; some of which include EPSRC-funded 'Data Analytics for Health-Care Profiling using Smart Meters' (EP/R020922/1), InnovateUK-funded Productivity Accelerator, ICURe/InnovateUK-funded 'Personalised Health Care Monitoring usingSmart Meter Energy Readings' and Made Smarter-funded 'Digital Twin for Space Planning'. Prior to working at WUR, he was an award-winning Reader (Associate Professor) in Creative Technologies in the Department of Computer Science at Liverpool John Moores University, where he worked for 6 years. During this time he taught a variety of subjects including Data Visualisation, Digital Games Content Production, Internet and Web Technologies, Research Skills, Interactive Multimedia Systems, Advanced Multimedia, Digital Storytelling and Interactive media and games development. His education includes a PGCert (Distinction) in Higher Education, a PhD in Computer Science (scholarship - focusing on Critical Infrastructures), an MSc with Distinction in Web Computing and a BSc(Hons) in Product Design. Tarek AlSkaif is an Assistant Professor with Tenure-track at the Information Technology group (INF), Wageningen University & Research (WUR). He received the Ph.D. degree (Cum-laude) from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC BarcelonaTech), Statistical Analysis of Networks and Systems (SANS) research group, Spain in 2016 and obtained the B.Sc. degree and the M.Sc. degree in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Damascus University, Syria in 2007 and 2011, respectively. Tarek is passionate about sustainability and the Energy Transition and believes in the key role of Information Technology in enabling that. Between 2016 - 2020, he was a postdoc in the Energy & Resources group at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, focusing on different research problems in smart grids and smart cities, including smart energy systems design, local energy communities, solar energy forecasting, smart integration of electric vehciles, among others, all with an emphasis on using ICT platforms, modeling, data analytics and artificial intelligence. Between 2016 and 2019, he was mainly working on the EU-project: PARticipatory platform for sustainable ENergy managemenT (PARENT), JPI, Urban Europe. Between 2018 and 2020, he initiated and coordinated the project: "A Blockchain-based platform for peer-to-peer energy transactions between Distributed Energy Resources (B-DER)" under the framework TKI-Urban Energy, Topsector Energie. Tarek has also been actively involved in other EU and Dutch research projects that uses ICT to facilitate the Energy Transition, such as the EU project Smart EV Solar Charging and the NWO project Energy Intranets (NEAT).