Rik Van de Walle received master and PhD degrees in Engineering from Ghent University, Belgium in July 1994 and February 1998, respectively. His PhD was about Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and was prepared in the context of a close collaboration between the Department of Radiology (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences) and the Department of Electronics and Information Systems (Faculty of Engineering and Architecture).
After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona (Tucson, USA) he returned to Ghent, became a full-time Lecturer in 2001, and founded the Multimedia Lab at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture. This research group is one of the founding teams of iMinds. In 2016, it became Data Science Lab. Currently, the Data Science Lab has about 80 members.
In 2004 he was appointed Full Professor, and in 2010 he became Senior Full Professor at Ghent University. In the same year, Rik Van de Walle was appointed as Research Director within the iMinds, where he is leading the Future Media and Imaging Research Department (consisting of about 150 researchers, coming from Ghent University, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and University of Antwerp). His personal research interests include multimedia content delivery (including presentation and archiving), coding of multimedia data, metadata technology, content adaptation, interactive (mobile) multimedia applications, and e-health, systems and signals.
Rik has been teaching several courses, dealing with fundamentals of multimedia, and (advanced) multimedia applications. These courses belonged to study programs at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (bachelor/master of Computer Science Engineering & bachelor/master of Electrical Engineering), and the Faculty of Sciences (bachelor of Informatics). In the past, he had teaching duties in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences as well (master of Biomedical and Clinical Engineering & training program in Nuclear Medicine).
Currently, he is teaching Systems and Signals, a course that is followed by all Bachelor of Science in Engineering students at Ghent University.
Throughout his career, Rik has been closely collaborating with a large number of research groups and partners, coming from different backgrounds: engineering, biomedical technology, sciences, arts, (digital) rights management, media and communication sciences. He has been a member/secretary/chairman of quite a large number of committees, not only within his own faculty both also outside his faculty/university. These activities just illustrate his strong belief in the importance of open-mindedness, and the importance of a multi- or interdisciplinary approach!!
Since 2012, he is the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at Ghent University, and since 2014 he is the Head of the Electronics and Information Systems Department. He is also a member of iMinds' Board of Directors.
Apart from this, Rik is trying to have a good time while being outside the university as well, together with his wife Brenda Delcloo. He is daddy of Bram and Kim (born in 1999 and 2001, respectively) and stepfather of Mauro (born in 2004). When he was young(er) himself, Rik was a decent tennis player. But he had to stop playing competition when he was 15 due to medical reasons. However, in 2006, after an absence of more than 20 years, a few friends convinced him to cautiously make a comeback on tennis courts
His current sports activities should be described as 'endurance sports'. He ran the Rotterdam marathon twice (2014, 2015), the Amsterdam marathon once (2015), and is aiming at participation in both of them in 2016. So, one could call him a 'marathoner'. His marathon PR? 3h11m38s (Amsterdam, 2015).
Rik has been an active flute player for many years as well. He has happy memories of the numerous concerts he played as a member of different orchestras and ensembles (e.g., Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and Schubert's Fifth Symphony under the guidance of Rudolf Werthen, Prokofiev's Peter and The Wolf, the yearly performance of Bach's Saint Matthew Passion under the direction of Jan Vallach, etc.). Currently, however, Rik's musical ambitions are limited to visiting concert halls.
Phone +32 9 331 49 14
