Short academic biography

I was born in Zottegem, Belgium on 30 September 1964.

After obtaining a Physics Engineering (Master’s) degree at Ghent University in 1987, I started my doctoral research there as a PhD Fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), working on the order-theoretic foundations of decision making and uncertainty modelling, under the guidance of Etienne Kerre. After completing my military service, I obtained a PhD degree in Engineering, summa cum laude, in May 1993, with a dissertation called ‘An order-theoretic approach to vagueness and uncertainty’.

I then spent six years working as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the FWO, five years at Ghent University, and one year (1997) at Binghamton University with George Klir, as a visiting research scholar. In October 1999, the FWO awarded me a permanent position as a Research Associate, which was converted after one year into a permanent position as professor at Ghent University, in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, FEA. My first ten years there were spent as a research professor with limited teaching duties. I was promoted to full professorship in October 2012 and to senior full professorship in October 2019, and took on the duties of a Director of Studies for the FEA between 2014 and 2018. In October 2018, I was elected as a member of Ghent University’s Board of Governors, as a representative of the professors in Engineering and Architecture, and I have been serving in that role since then.

In 1999, Peter Walley, Serafin Moral, Fabio Cozman and I organised the First International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications (ISIPTA ‘99) in Ghent, Belgium, and one year later, Peter Walley, Marco Zaffalon and I founded SIPTA, the Society for Imprecise Probabilities: Theories and Applications. I served as President of that thriving scientific society for two terms, and subsequently performed various duties as a member of its Executive Board.

I have been a Visiting Professor at Durham University’s Department of Mathematical Sciences for two terms (2014–2017 and 2019–2021), and I am currently an Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol’s Department of Philosophy.

I’ve had the pleasure and the honour of serving as a promoter for the PhD research of a number of bright people (quite a few of whom are also building academic careers): Hugo Janssen, Filip De Smet, Matthias Troffaes, Erik Quaeghebeur, Filip Hermans, Jasper De Bock, Arthur Van Camp, Stavros Lopatatzidis, Meizhu Li, Thomas Krak, Alexander Erreygers, Natan T’Joens, and currently Arne Decadt, Floris Persiau, Keano De Vos, and Adrián Detavernier.