hp_01_spring_2010

hp het proefschrift

Spring, 2010

journal for phd candidates at

Salami Science?_Ilse Oosterlaken

Copenhagen Climate Change Conference_Brett Dietz

Moral Emotions and Risk Politics_Sabine Roeser

Semidefinite Programming and Fourier Analysis_Frank Vallentin

A New Home for Bouwkunde_Ipek Gursel

Guitars_José Nuno Beirão

Zoom In!_Arjo Loeve

Nomad Researchers_Jean-François Auger

Euraxess:Your Access to the Netherlands_Marlies Rexwinkel

A Successful Approach to PhD Research_Gerard Meijer

Ostrom and Williamson_Rolf Kunneke

TU Delft’s PhD Policy_interview with Hans Suijkerbuijk

Give Your TU Delft Career a Boost_Jong Delft Network

CoverPieter Bruegel the Elder ‘ ‘De toren van Babel’© Creative Commons

3spring 2010

Editorial

One of the phenomena that every newcomer to TU Delft’s research com-munity can experience is its cultural di-versity. Both Promood’s board and this journal can be presented as supports for this statement.

Among the 14 members of Promood’s board there are people born in 11 dif-ferent countries, speaking 9 different native languages. And among this jour-nal’s 16 articles, there are contributions from people born in 9 different coun-tries speaking 8 different native lan-guages. What can we expect as an out-come from this cultural melting pot? How can we manage to deal with it?

This is the challenge that each one of us is experiencing on a daily basis. We have to talk with students, supervisors, research colleagues or new friends that come from all the different parts of the world. We all have our own vernacular language, but we are challenged to be able to speak a “lingua franca”.

How does your own identity perform under this context? Do you lose the specificities of the circumstance where you were born and raised in order to adapt to this new condition? Or do you try to affirm your own identity, stressing what is related with your cul-tural roots? Are you more interested in becoming a globalized citizen of the world or in contributing to rethink your cultural background after being con-taminated by globalization?

We seem to be again in a scenario where the story of the Babel Tower is worth to remember. Could it be that on the one hand we are trying to use a common language to built some-thing that will challenge and defy God or some other sacred instance to our own individual benefice or in the other hand are we are just taking advantage of this “lingua franca” to the benefice of Humanity? The specific character-istics of the research community can contribute to a very interesting debate on this issue. This was one of the rea-sons to choose Pieter Bruegel’s paint-ing of the Tower of Babel to the cover of this reborn journal.

This issue of Promood’s journal HP – “Het Proefschrift”, launches a new chapter in its existence. The journal has a new layout design, new sections and extended contents in order to create a good companion for a broader range of readers. Nevertheless, its main goal is still to be focused in the world of re-search and within the specific interests of TU Delft’s research community. Our little Babel.

The contributions for this issue bring to-gether all the different languages at TU Delft: Ilse Oosterlaken presents us an insight on the topic of ethics and pub-lishing; Brett Dietz report us his frustra-tions and hopes from the Copenhagen 15th UN Climate Change Conference; Sabine Roeser and Frank Vallentin re-veal the summaries of their VIDI prize winner projects; Jean-François Auger shows a portrait of the researcher as a nomad; José Nuno Beirão brings to the fore the jazzy sound of guitars; Ipek Gursel takes us to the inside of the reborn Faculty of Architecture; Arjo Loeve reveal us his passion for photog-raphy; Rolf Kunneke reviews the work of two Nobel Prize laureates for Eco-nomics; Prof. Gerard Meijer contributes from “the other side” with some advices for Phd’s; Hans Suijkerbuijk reveals TU Delft plans to begin a Graduate School; Marlies Rexwinkel brings some help for researchers in motion and finally the Jong Delft network board reveal how you can give your career a boost.

We do believe that, at the least in this journal, our common language can work as a simple instrument to al-low our identity to come forward. We would be pleased to look at this journal as an echo chamber for different identi-ties. We hope that the range of subjects displayed at this issue can contribute to this.

Editorial

Words from the board

PromooD news

Opinion

(Un) Confidential report

What are you doing?

Life Post-Doc

Relax Corner

Mastering Your Identity Within the

Babel

Nelson Mota

Contents

03

04

05

06

07

08

10

11

Inside TU

Heroes of everyday life

State of the Art

His master’s voice

From the other side

Links

Upcoming events

Meet the board

12

14

16

17

18

20

22

23

[email protected]

4 het proefschrift

hp editorial team:

President:Rajen Akalu

Editor-in-chief:Nelson Mota

Associate Editors:Alberto Gonzalez, social eventsSylvie Soudarissanane , PhD policy

Layout and Design:Nelson Mota

The Aims of PromooD

The process of getting a PhD is an in-tellectual journey that starts with a re-search proposal and ends with a thesis defense. The steps in between are of course different for each individual, but certainly all researchers experience similar highs and lows along the way.

By participating in university life in general and the activities of Promood in particular you can make your PhD both valuable and enjoyable. There are plenty of opportunities to learn from other PhDs, make friends and develop skills that will contribute directly to-ward completing your PhD and your employability thereafter.

As President of Promood it is my role, together with the Promood Board, to represent the interests of PhDs here at TU Delft. The activities of the Board range from dealing with substantive matters to organizing social events.

In the past we have handled such is-sues as the resolution of contractual disputes between PhDs and the univer-sity administration as well as individual PhD complaints. At present, we are working to reduce PhD thesis defense waiting times and contributing to the reform proposals for PhD education at the University. We also represent TU Delft PhDs at the national level by par-ticipating in the Promovendi Network Netherlands (PNN).

On the social side, Promood has or-ganized a number of activities. Most

recently we arranged beer and wine tasting in co-operation with the PhD association at the University of Leiden (LEO). We’ve also held sport events such as volleyball and football at the TU Delft sports centre.

Information sharing is one of our main activities. We keep you up-to-date with the latest relevant PhD news though the Promood website and our e-zine. We also distribute our informa-tion booklet Prologue, containing all

you need to know about doing a PhD at TU Delft.

In co-operation with commercial pub-lishing firms, printer’s markets are also organized throughout the year to assist you in printing copies of your thesis.

In the year ahead there is much more planned. On April 15 of this year we’re planning to hold a major PhD career initiative at TU Delft. We’ll be reaching out to former PhD alumni and inviting them to the university to discuss their career paths at a networking event. This will allow you to address specific career related questions to an industry professional in your own field. It may even result in a job opportunity!

We’re interested in learning from and about your university experience. This year for the first time we’re running a contest to find the TU Delft Supervisor of the Year. You can nominate your pro-fessor and let us know why you think he or she is someone that other profes-sors should take notice of. Competition details are available on the Promood website www.promood.nl

We’re always looking for new ideas, so if there is an event that you’d really like to see arranged we’d be delighted to hear from you.

I look forward to seeing you around the campus or at our next event.

Rajen Akalu

Words from the board

Colophon

colaborators on this issue:

Arjo Loeve, Brett Dietz, Frank Vallentin, Gerard Meijer, Hans Suijkerbuijk, Ilse Oosterlaken, Ipek Gursel, Jean-François Auger, Jong Delft network, José Nuno Beirão, Marlies Rexwinkel, Rolf Kunneke and Sabine Roeser

© Promood and the authors of the articlesFebruary 2010Circulation: 2000 copies

[email protected]

hp _ het proefschrift

is the journal of PromooD, the independent representative body of the PhD candidates at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).

For more information about PromooD:www.promood.tudelft.nl

5spring 2010

PromooD Newsevents, facts, membership, ...

“New events and social activities for PromooD!” has been the goal of the events and social activities action group of PromooD since its creation in the plenary meeting of 2009. In the past years, the social aspect of PromooD had been almost reduced to the yearly (and very popular) barbecue. A lack of social events was not only disappoint-ing our more active members, but also was creating visibility problems. An as-sociation without events is an invisible association! It was necessary to revive the languishing social life aspects of PromooD, and to bring a new feeling of community among the doctoral candi-dates of the TU Delft, members or not.

Spring brought our first two events: a beach-volleyball match and a work-shop of wine tasting with a profession-al sommelier. Despite our initial fear that the low attendance trend would continue, both events were a great suc-cess. The positive effects of the new events, started to show in the increased number of memberships and was con-firmed when the yearly barbecue got more than 70 attendees, despite be-ing in a less convenient location than previous years. Wine tasting had its au-tumn counterpart with beer tasting in October, with more than 30 attendees.

In November, the PromooD Saturday Night (PSN), where we offered dis-counted cinema tickets and had a nice dinner, got so many registrations that we were not able to accept all of them. We promise it won’t happen again!

Both tasting events were the result of our collaboration with LEO, our sister association from Leiden University. Delft and Leiden universities are mere kilometers away, but that distance seems to be like light-years when it comes to knowing and meeting each other. For this reason, PromooD and LEO decided to organize joint events, so that the members of both associa-tions could have the opportunity to meet each other.

The event agenda for 2009 finished with our traditional Sinterklaas game. We are working hard to have our 2010 calendar set as soon as possible, with ideas like paintball, soccer, “Do-It-Yourself Recycle Your Rejected Papers” in mind, and of course, the barbecue!

December 5th: pakjesavond. Or if you missed that lesson of Het Groene Boek: “presents evening”. And who brings those presents? Saint Nicholas, or Sin-terklaas. But, as every Dutch kid knows very well, only if you have been a good boy or girl. Otherwise his helper Zwarte Piet will take you in his bag to Spain! One wonders why Dutch kids are so well behaved… After all, a trip to Spain doesn’t sound like a bad winter holiday plan at all!

PromooD also joined the fun, and as every year organized the PhD Sin-terklaas event, with rhymes, sweets, presents, dinner and lots of nice peo-ple from all five continents except Ant-arctica. The plan sounded so gezellig that Sinterklaas himself came to see all the grown-up kids that gathered at De Klomp on the evening of the 4th of De-cember. Fun is always guaranteed in a game where people steal each other’s presents (isn’t that a nice spirit?) and sing songs. Sinterklaas himself spoke to each of the participants, and offered them to either take a present from his huge bag, or steal the present of some poor victim. But don’t worry: in the end everyone got something.

A Year Full of Activities

Sinterklaas Komt!

Alberto Gonzá[email protected]

Delft+Leiden+Beer (tasting) = wacky joint research topics

6 het proefschrift

Salami Science?On the Ethics of

Publishing as Much as You Can

When you are a witness in court, you are asked to swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth and noth-ing but the truth. Scientists, everybody will agree, should also tell nothing but the truth in their research publications. But are they also obliged to tell the whole truth? This question becomes especially relevant with the increasing pressure on departments and indi-vidual researchers to meet demanding targets with respect to the amount of publications. This stimulates what has been called ‘salami science’: cut up your research results in as many thin slices as possible and publish one slice in this journal, the next slice in another and so on. Is this morally acceptable? Doesn’t this negatively affect your sci-entific integrity? On the other end of strategic behavior: perhaps there is also something like telling the (whole) truth one time too many. We refer here to the phenomenon of self-plagiarism; just change a few sentences here and there, add perhaps another section and what emerges is an ‘original’ arti-cle to publish in another journal. With-out making any new contribution to the progress of scientific knowledge. Should we pass negative judgment on this sort of action?

If you think we should, it may very well be because of the negative con-sequences of this sort of behavior and research practice. Wasting of valuable and limited resources (time of peer-reviewers, editors and readers, journal space) is mentioned most often in dis-cussions. A possible undesirable effect could also be a loss of trust within the scientific community. Salami science seems even more detrimental when it is a result of financial incentives for pharmaceutical companies to show that medicines work – with slicing re-search up into several publications giv-ing the impression that their claims are better supported than they are in real-ity. “I have seen examples of biomate-rials research that are sliced so thing”, John Felder once said, “you can read a newspaper through them”. It sure does not sound as if he approved. However, not all cases are clear-cut examples of ethical misbehavior. There are, for ex-

ample, sometimes even good reasons for self-plagiarism and salami science: different parts of the project may be relevant for different audiences. Not to publish results in two different jour-nals may mean that a significant group of readers will not get to know these research results.

”It is far more impressive to publish a few substantive and innovative arti-cles than it is to publish many small and insignificant ones”, says one jour-nal editor on www.scipac.org. “The best advice I can give to the young researcher is “no salami science!”” Yet we should also acknowledge that the “publish or perish” culture in modern science does make it difficult to be-have honorable. Solutions proposed include research ethics education for scientists and better guidelines and policies for authors by journals, includ-ing sanctions as being banned from future publication in the journal when caught violating them.

In the fall of 2008 Promood and the Platform for Ethics and Technology together organized a lunch workshop for PhD students on the ethics of pub-lishing. Workshop leader was David Koepsell, an American philosopher and attorney who co-edited amongst others Science and Ethics: Can Science Help Us Make Wise and Moral Judg-ments? He has extensive experience teaching research ethics in the US. In the workshop, he also addressed the notion of ‘open science’ as a possible solution. “Open source publishing of scientific materials is, I think, a prom-ising way to defeat some of the more dangerous temptations and pitfalls of publishing”, so he wrote me, “while simultaneously serving the scientific method and democratic values”.

You may not have noticed it, but in October 2009 a worldwide ‘Open Ac-cess week’ took place, drawing atten-tion to the desirability of a new and improved way of academic publish-ing. Several universities in the Neth-erlands paid attention to it and a very informative website was opened at www.openaccess.nl. One of the items in the website’s menu is “What’s in it for me?” The creators from this website have obviously realized that it is much easier for people to contribute to noble moral causes when they benefit from it as well. But please also take a look at the next item in the menu, “What can I do?” to advance open access. PhD stu-dents are the researchers of the future and hence attempts to create better practices that uphold academic values should include them.

Ilse Oosterlaken

Opinionabout research, sports, life and other subjects....

Ilse Oosterlaken (Woerden, The Nether-lands) is a PhD candidate in the Philoso-phy Section of the Technology, Policy and Management Faculty of TU Delft.

[email protected]

we should also ac-knowledge that the “publish or perish” culture in modern science does make

it difficult to behave honorable

7spring 2010

(Un) Confi dential reportnews from scientifi cal events

Last December, I attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This conference was widely anticipated to be an historic event, during which 192 countries would negotiate a binding interna-tional treaty for climate change mitiga-tion beyond 2012. Tens of thousands of representatives from environmen-tal organizations, academia, industry, government and intergovernmental organizations fl ocked to the city, hop-ing to make their voices heard. For the global environmental community, the level of expectation leading up to the summit was exceeded only by the bit-ter disappointment at its failure. In the second week, many non-govern-mental participants were barred from even entering the conference center due to overcrowding. Businesses were, for the most part, shut out of the con-ference entirely. In their sessions, gov-ernment delegates spent the time

reiterating their individual positions, alternately pointing fi ngers at the developed and developing world, or storming out of negotiations in dis-plays of defi ance. At the last minute, a deal was hastily put together by small handful of nations. The accord lacks meaningful detail, is not binding, and it still remains to be seen whether the developing world will accept it. And yet, while the delegates grand-standed, there were reasons for opti-mism. Forward-thinking businesses held forums and lectures for those left out of the conference, insisting that they saw huge growth opportu-nities in a post-carbon world. NGOs organized events inside and outside of the conference center, rallying sup-port from the global community for

their causes. An alternative climate conference, Kilmaforum, was open to the public, attracting nearly 50,000 participants. 100,000 people took to the streets to call for action from their governments. The collective energy in the city was virtually palpable and ex-tremely inspiring in spite of the failure of the delegates to accomplish their task. In the private sector, NGO com-munity, and in many world govern-ments, the call for action has reached a crescendo. Next November, in Mexico City, the few powerful holdouts will have another chance to act in the best interest of the planet. Hopefully, this time, they will heed the call.

Brett Dietz

15th United Nations Climate Change Conference Dec 7 – Dec 18, 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark

Brett Dietz (San Diego, USA) is a visiting Fulbright researcher in the Economics of Infrastructures department at the Tech-nology, Policy, and Management Faculty in TU Delft.

[email protected]

8 het proefschrift

What are you doing?Research abstracts from TU Delft’s phd community and research centres

My recently awarded NWO-VIDI-project will offer a philosophical inves-tigation of how moral emotions can be incorporated into political decision making and communication about risky technologies.

Risks arising from technologies raise important ethical issues for people living in the 21st century. Although technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, ICT, and nuclear energy can improve human well-being, they may also convey risks for our well-be-ing due to, for example, accidents and pollution. As a consequence of such side-effects, technologies can trigger emotions, including fear and indig-nation, which often leads to conflicts between experts and laypeople. How should we deal with such emotions in political decision making about risky technologies?

Emotions have often been met with suspicion in political debates about

risky technologies, because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. Indeed emotions can cloud our understanding of quantitative in-formation about risks. However, as I have shown in my VENI-project (2005-2009), moral emotions are necessary in order to judge ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness and autonomy.

This VIDI-project will build on my VENI-project by extending my ideas to risk politics. 1. I will develop a procedural approach for policy making such that emotional responses to technologi-cal risks, and the ethical concerns that lie behind them, are taken seriously. 2. A PhD-student will investigate the extent to which existing models for political decision making about risks

can include moral emotions. 3. The manner in which risks are presented is an important factor in decision mak-ing about risks, therefore, a postdoc will develop a theoretical framework on how moral emotions should be in-cluded in risk communication.

This VIDI-project will lead to recom-mendations for institutional reforms, enabling morally better political deci-sions about risky technologies and a better understanding between experts and laypeople, by genuinely incorpo-rating moral emotions into risk politics and risk communication.

Sabine Roeser

Dr. Sabine Roeser (Haan, Germany) works at the Philosophy Department at the Faculty of TPM. She is currently a NIAS-fellow and she will head a VIDI-project from 2010-2015.

Moral Emotions and Risk Politics

[email protected]

The field of mathematical optimiza-tion started in 1947 when Dantzig invented the simplex method for lin-ear programming. In the 1980’s the field was revolutionized when the first efficient algorithms for linear program-ming were found. Nowadays, a popular and far-reaching generalization of lin-ear programming is semidefinite pro-gramming. Over the last two decades semidefinite programming became one of the strongest general purpose tools for the design and analysis of efficient algorithms in optimization.

Over the last two centuries Fourier analysis became the strongest general purpose tool to exploit qualitative and quantitative structure of mathematical objects, like functions and operators. Now Fourier analysis is omnipresent in our modern technological life. One can find implemented pieces of Fourier

analysis in every device in which infor-mation (audio, images, video) is proc-essed; their basic actions, like coding, decoding, compression, prediction, filtering, approximation, quantization, are unthinkable without the use of Fourier analysis.

The main objective of my research is the combination of semidefinite pro-gramming and Fourier analysis. The goal is to use this combination to solve computational difficult problems in mathematics and mathematical engi-neering which cannot be attacked by current techniques. These problems come from different areas: continuous combinatorial optimization, energy minimization in geometry and math-

ematical physics, statistics, and engi-neering.

First successes have already been booked: The kissing number problem is the maximum number of non-over-lapping equally-sized spheres that can simultaneously touch a central sphere. This number is only known for dimen-sions 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 24. It is easy to see that the kissing number in dimension 1 is 2, and in dimension 2 it is 6. The kissing number problem has a rich his-tory. In 1694 Newton and Gregory had a famous discussion about the kissing number in three dimensions. The story is that Gregory thought 13 spheres could fit while Newton believed the limit was 12. We found the best known bounds for the kissing number in sev-eral dimensions.

The kissing number problem can be

Frank Vallentin

Semidefinite Programming and Fourier Analysis

[email protected]

9spring 2010

Figure: Construction of 12 kissing spheres. (Image credit: Anja Traffas)

Dr. Frank Vallentin (Eslohe, Germany) is an assistant professor in the optimiza-tion and system theory group at the EWI faculty at the TU Delft. He is part-time affiliated to the group Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization at CWI Amsterdam. He will head an NWO VIDI-project from 2010-2015.

viewed as an energy minimization problem which is related to many prob-lems in science and technology. As en-gineers advance in gaining control of the microscopic and even nanoscopic world, energy minimization principles become increasingly important for synthetic fabrication and design.

10 het proefschrift

Nomad Researchers“Where are you from?” This question is asked often in conversations, most likely with a smile. While you discuss a paper at a conference, while you flirt at a party, or while you have a small talk with the hair dresser, people will in-variably bring that question to the fore, and that will arise especially if, listening to your exotic accent and hearing your foreign name, they want the confirma-tion that you came from somewhere, usually a country that fulfil their fanta-sy, or alternatively a country that corre-spond to their prejudgements, and all this despite that you come obviously from somewhere else. If you recognize yourself in this picture, you may be a nomad researcher.

They move from one country to an-other, and then again as much as nec-essary, to pursue their research quest without being attached to a particular location. They seize opportunities of-fered by positions, research fellowships and grants to exploit specialized instru-ments and technologies, and to get acquainted with groups of specialized researchers. They constitute complex society, by being in touch with other researchers in the world. Yet one day, nomad researchers may stop their per-egrinations, because they get engaged with a native, they form a family or, sim-ply, because their life come to a term.

Some nomad researchers exert fascina-tion, for they were driven by an insatia-ble curiosity that made them travelling

to discover new things. Herodotus, a Greek historian, wrote his Histories, in the 5th Century BC, from the testimo-nies that he collected during his trav-els in Europe, Asia and North Africa. He reported quasi-ethnographic descrip-tions of populations’ culture, rituals, religions, politics, etc., with an unprec-edented objectivity.

There is also Albertus Magnus, born in Bavaria at the beginning of the 13th Century, who studied at the universi-ties of Padua and Bologna, where he learn Aristotle’s philosophy and Chris-tian theology from reputed scholars. After his studies, he taught at the universities of Paris, Cologne and Fri-bourg, while carrying an original ency-clopedic research work on the chemi-cal properties of physical elements and on a translation of Aristotle’s man-uscripts in Latin and Arabic.

Finally Alexander von Humboldt, a German explorer in natural sciences, who after his studies at the university, traveled to meet naturalists in Paris, at the end of the 18th Century. Taking precise measures with original instru-ments, and taking copious notes in his notepad, he organized scientific ex-

peditions in South, Central and North America and, later on, in Siberia. He collected scientific evidences during his journey and, in his work Cosmos, made an attempt at depicting a univer-sal world-view.

There is a price, however, if you intent to become the Herodotus, Albertus Magnus or the Humboldt of your time. Surely you may have a personal life that will suffers from the turbulences of moving from one place to another, and that especially affects the relationship with your family, your love partner(s) and the friends you made at your point of origin and during your journey. Next to this, you may question the owner-ship of goods, all the stuff that you own without crucially needing it: you will certainly reduce your material pos-session to a wardrobe full of clothes, a shelf filled with books, a laptop compu-ter and a mobile phone. That is it.

Last but not least, you will come across the question of self identity. Where do I come from? Who I am? Where I go? Sedentary researcher answer these questions by citing the injunction engraved on a temple in Delphi, and made famous by Socrates, “Know thy-self”, while nomad researchers, who constantly need to adapt to the com-plexity of the world, will sit next to Friedrich Nietzsche and ask “Who will I become?”

Jean-François Auger

Life post-Docand what then, after your phd?

Jean-François Auger, who was born in Québec, a city where “the past holds the present on its shoulders”, moved to Montréal, to Strasbourg and to Delft to prac-tice research in social science. Meanwhile, he has travelled to several cities in Europe and North America where he delivered scientific presentations. For a time being, he occupies a position of assistant professor at Delft University of Technol-ogy. While his identity embeds Dutch attributes, such as eating boterham met kaas and having vacations on a sailboat, he remains strongly a Québécois in his lifestyle, notably by the way he handles chainsaws to cut down trees. He dislikes national borders, visa for scientists, walls that separates populations and, above all in conversations, the question “Where are you from?”

[email protected]

Jean-François Auger

11spring 2010

Relax Cornerabout music, cinema, books, whatever

José Nuno Beirão (Torres Novas, Por-tugal) is a PhD researcher in the depart-ment of Building Technology at the Faculty of Architecture in TU Delft.

Rock music did not produce much nov-elty in guitar playing since Jimi Hendrix with maybe a very small number of honorable exceptions to which I should keep a well-deserved mention like Frank Zappa or Robert Fripp. However jazz music has produced incredible new approaches to the use of this in-strument both in electric and acoustic formats during the past two decades. It seems though that the majority of the most important developments are not known by the general public, even jazz listeners. Obviously, I am not talking about the main stream guys frequently seen in the expensive summer festivals like Pat Metheny or Ralph Towner. Not even Egberto Gismonti, a bit more ob-scure but with an incomparable tech-nique playing strange jazzy Brazilian sounds on an unusual 10-string guitar. I’m talking some even more obscure guitarists hiding on the backstage of improvisation.

Names like Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, El-liot Sharp or Otomo Yoshihide have been showing that guitar sounds and guitar exploration are quite far from being exhausted both on electrical or acoustical areas. Diff erent guitar types have also been used and explored. The album ‘Octal – Book One’, by Elliot Sharp, publish at Cleanfeed Records explores a singular guitar, the Koll 8-string electroacoustic guitarbass. The sounds he takes from this guitar and his technique are amazing. On the same guitar series at Cleanfeed you can also fi nd the recent guitar duo where Sharp and Scott Fields show an impres-sive inspiration.

But in the domain of guitar exploration, technique and creativity, Fred Frith def-initely stands as my favorite. Although his impressive and already long career passed through many diff erent music fi elds starting in the prog rock band Henry Cow, his guitar albums clearly show an introspective dedication to guitar innovation. ‘Clearing’ is probably the most illustrative example of this side of Frith’s career although ‘Guitar Solos’ is generally pointed as his best solo work.

Derek Bailey is a unique guitar im-proviser and has dedicated most of

his work to improvisation. He can be easily recognized by his outstand-ing style, perhaps a bit hard for most ears, but with no doubt an exclusive one. Although involved most of the time in improvisation and hard core jazz projects like Massacre (along with Frith), some albums with standards show an extremely personal approach to jazz guitar classics. ‘Standards’ is

certainly one of my recommendations along with ‘Ballads’. But I can not end my review on Bailey without stating his ‘Diff erent Guitars’ and ‘Takes Fakes & Dead She Dances’.

Yoshihide is a curious phenomenal gui-tarist. His work spreads through over a hundred recordings and he divides his activity between guitar and turntables moving with extreme easiness from very experimental attitudes to trash metal aesthetics. Although quite an amount of work uses acoustic guitar his best guitar performances involve the electric guitar. The ‘Soup’ trilogy is certainly a good example along with ‘Episome’. These performances pro-pose an approach to guitar improvisa-tion in areas quite uncommon in jazz, if we can call this music jazz. Evidently jazzy is his project Otomo’s New Jazz Quintet or Orchestra depending on the specifi c band alignment. This project reveals also an extreme liberty and a huge variety of styles and approaches. Keeping focused on the guitar expres-sion I would defi nitely put forward ‘Live in Lisbon’ as an anthological album. Lis-tening to it is always a discovery and its energy never fades.

Finaly, I would like end this journey through the new jazz guitar by leaving a note on Marc Ribot. He is generally known by his constant collaboration with John Zorn. What stands out in his career is his capacity of engaging in many diff erent guitar expressions from ‘Los Cubanos Postizos’ to Zorn’s Ma-sada projects. But as a guitar perform-ance I would like to point out Zorn’s ‘A Book of Heads’, a revolutionary journey to guitar composition that Ribot plays with extreme virtuosity.

Guitars

José Nuno Beirã[email protected]

Fred Frith

jazz music has pro-duced incredible

new approaches to the use of guitars

both in electric and acoustic formats

12 het proefschrift

BK CityFaculty of Architecture

A fi re would defi nitely be one of the fi rst items amongst a list of most trau-matic events that might happen in one’s life, and the Faculty of Architec-ture had a fi rst-hand experience with it. On 13 May 2008, the fortress of the faculty, housing more than 4000 peo-ple including the academic staff , re-searchers and students, burned down from a fi re caused by a water leakage followed by a short-circuiting coff ee automat. Within a very short time, the fi re spread throughout the 13 fl oor building, destroying very valuable student and research work, many fur-niture and hardware, exquisite collec-tions housed by the faculty, and many precious memories of many years and people. Despite much distress and suf-fering, a fresh new start was made im-mediately afterwards. This is the story of the resurrection of a faculty that rose from her ashes even stronger than be-fore, thanks to people who passionate-ly joined forces as a community with a growing sense of optimism.

Shortly after the fi re, the faculty board picked up the situation. The tempo-rary solution, four tents that was built just next to the building (that was still literally smoking), housed many peo-ple including PhDs who could resume their research immediately, while many others spread throughout the cam-pus, seeking for a transitory workspace as refugees until a lasting solution is found by the university. However, as the dean Wytze Patijn put it, it was ex-tremely important it is for the faculty’s students and staff to all be at the same location. After only 6 months, the fac-ulty fi nally settled in its current location on Julianalaan, a national monument which was used as the main univer-sity building previously. In a very short timeframe, this old building was trans-formed into a charming home that took the city as a model of design, with the name BK City.

Inside TUfaculties and research centers at TU Delft

Reborn From its Ashes: A New Home

for Bouwkunde

Ipek Gursel [email protected]

Ipek Gursel (Ankara, Turkey) is a PhD researcher in the department of Building Technology in the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft.

Many designers worked on the build-ing during the renovation, which ex-plains the many diff erent styles than can be seen all throughout the build-ing. The main idea in the design was to give the building an identity as a fac-ulty of architecture, and to transform the existing building from its dark and gloomy atmosphere into a lively, vi-brant space. The main street that con-nects the various functions and spaces in the building helps to fi nd way in the labyrinth-like layout of the building. Two greenhouses were built to provide more space for studios, in which many educational and cultural events and exhibitions take place. What adds the building a fi nishing stylish touch is the Vitra furniture that create an inspiring work environment for the students and staff . And just outside the building, the many colorful chairs can be found to enjoy a sunny afternoon on.

This charming building is now visited by not only its students and staff , but also many people from the univer-sity as an attraction point for meeting. Even though the old building that con-nected many generations of students and architects is gone now, the spirit of Bouwkunde is kept alive in this new building that we call “home”.

Must-do’s of the BKcity: Sip your cof-fee and taste the delicious brownies: in the Espressobar; Have lunch: in the Ketelhuis; Scroll through a trendy ar-chitecture magazine: in the library; See a lecture: in the East glassgouse; See the student scale models: in the South glasshouse; Enjoy the comfort of the stylish chairs and sofas: all throughout the building.

Scenes from the fi re of the former bulding of the Faculty of Architecture. (13-05-2008)

13spring 2010

© Rob ‘t Hart Fotografie

14 het proefschrift

© Arjo Loeve

© Arjo Loeve

15spring 2010

Heroes of everyday lifereflections about the life of a phd

My name is Arjo Loeve, I am a fourth year Ph.D. student developing medi-cal instruments, but for now I am sup-posed to talk about that other part of every day life, called ‘your own time’. I spend a huge part of that time as a (people) photographer and graphic designer, and (non-scientific remark alert!) that’s without doubt one of the best ways to spend your time.

Through connections with the Tilburg conservatory I photograph many musi-cians and musical/theatre artists, most-ly to create their casting portfolios or promotional posters, flyers, or websites. Working with these beautiful, talented, creative people is superb, and a great plus to these assignments is that you are often asked to photograph their performances as well, which means free tickets to concerts, plays and mu-sicals… and still getting paid! Perhaps this would fit some manual titled ‘How to survive the financial crisis by passing ticket controls without paying’?

Other assignments come from fami-lies and companies wanting group or portrait photos. And of course there are always people that just want nice

pictures of themselves to have or give away. For some reason… mostly wom-en. That’s no punishment of course, but why do men think that women don’t want nice pictures to look at as well?

Photographing toddlers can be chal-lenging. They can utterly ignore any-thing you say and simply decide that it is no-photographs-day today. It is absolutely hilarious to see that if you become a child yourself (no biggie for this guy) and get down to their level they can suddenly change their mood and beat any professional model with honest expressions and voluntary pos-ing.

Since 2008 I started on wedding pho-tography, which is more challenging then I ever imagined. It starts by work-ing at full effort during the wedding from as early as 6 o’clock in the morn-ing to as late as 2 o’clock at night while

trying to be at the right spot with the right lens and the right light at the right time… every second. And then come the many evenings of selecting photos and manually cutting and pasting (no Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V here people) the wed-ding album. But when you are finished and see two shiny, happy people (REM) going through their album of memo-ries for the first time it’s like… well, I guess it must feel like receiving your Ph.D. after the Hora Est.

The best thing about photography is that it opens your eyes to details. And after all, it’s the small things in life that really matter. You could of course start looking at www.arjoloeve.nl, but don’t forget to find your own small things!

Zoom In!

Arjo Loeve

Arjo Loeve (Hardinxveld-Giessendam, the Netherlands) is a PhD researcher in the department of BioMechanical Engi-neering at the 3mE Faculty in TU Delft.

[email protected]

16 het proefschrift

Nobel Prize Laureatesat forthcoming TU Delft International conference on the governance of infrastructures

Prof. Elinor Ostrom and Prof. Oliver Wil-liamson were awarded the Nobel Price for Economics in 2009 for their path breaking work on governance, i.e. the political and economic institutions that frame the expectations, decision rights and property rights in economic trans-actions.

The transaction cost theory devel-oped by Oliver Williamson builds on bounded rational behavior of actors and the necessity to take opportunistic behavior of third parties into account. Opportunities for contracting strongly depend on the characteristics of trans-actions that need to be facilitated. For instance market based classical con-tracting is only effi cient under specifi c circumstances, including little trans-action specifi c investments and a low degree of uncertainty. Depending on these circumstances, Williamson work provides very powerful insights into the effi ciency of diff erent kinds of eco-nomic organization, ranging from tra-

ditional contraction to hybrid modes like PPP, towards hierarchical organi-zations like private enterprises.

Ostrom is also concerned with govern-ance but takes a quite diff erent per-spective. Her work is very much con-cerned with so-called Common Pool Resources. This governance issue is very closely related to the well-known ‘tragedy of the commons’, i.e. a situa-tion in which everybody can make use of an important resource and appro-priate the benefi ts without contribut-ing to its long-term sustainability. This phenomenon is quite recognized with respect to the exploitation of environ-mental resources like forests, rivers or lake systems. Traditional tools of eco-nomic regulation, like price signals, direct governmental intervention, or privatization, often proved not to be suitable to resolve these problems.

Ostrom demonstrated the importance of self-regulation with respect to these Common Pool Resources, which

success or failure strongly depends on the local conditions and the socio-economic attributes of users. Effi ciency is not a key issue here, but rather the interrelation between socio-economic characteristics of the users vis-à-vis the features of the environmental resource systems.

In a forthcoming international confer-ence at TU Delft these two approaches are examined with respect to the regu-lation of next generation infrastruc-tures. Infrastructures are large-scale systems that are open to the public in order to provide essential services such as energy, communication, transporta-tion or drinking water.

State of the artbibliographical reviews and news from the scientifi c community

Rolf Kunneke by

Dr. Rolf Kunneke is a PhD researcher in the area of Microelectronics at the TWM Faculty in TU Delft.

[email protected]

Notable works of Ostrom and Williamson include:

Ostrom, Elinor, 1990, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Ac-tion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Ostrom, Elinor, 2009. A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Sys-tems. Science, 325, 419-422.

Williamson, Oliver E., 1975, Markets and Hierar-chies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. The Free Press, New York.

Williamson, Oliver E., 2000. The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead. Journal of Economic Literature, 38, 595-613.

Details of the conference can be found at:www.ei.tbm.tudelft.nl/13theviconference

17spring 2010

A Perspective for a Successful

Approach to PhD Research Projects

Many of TUDelft’s PhD research projects are fi nancially supported by the Dutch Technology Foundation STW. According to the STW rules, only risky scientifi c research projects are supported. Moreover, these projects should be of interest for the industrial sector. As a consequence, the course of the research work is not exclusively dependent on the eff orts of the PhD re-searcher. The industry, the supervisor, the funding body, and society in gen-eral can positively or negatively infl u-ence the course of PhD research work (see fi gure). These factors combined make it diffi cult to predict the course and to control the achievements of PhD research work. Yet, the majority of PhD researchers should still be able to complete an approved thesis.

According to fi gures of the Association of Dutch Universities, VSNU, it appears that less than 10% of PhD researchers manage to complete their PhD thesis in 4 years or less. Although this per-centage is quite low, fortunately after 6 years almost 50% of them success-fully reach the end. Nevertheless, this is still far from ideal. Of course, at TUDelft these fi gures are better, but even then this is a matter of concern.

Usually, PhD researchers are working with a high level of motivation and they always have a lot of interesting new ideas and knowledge to report. If they fail to complete their PhD thesis, this is often due to bad luck (Murphy’s law) or other circumstances beyond their control. In order to become less vulner-able to such eff ects, we need better risk management to be performed by both the supervisor and the PhD researcher. To enable this, my advice is that PhD re-searchers should already start writing their thesis at a very early stage of their work, for instance after the second year. Presentation of this early work will help to generate feedback from both scientifi c colleagues and indus-trial partners, while training the PhD researcher’s presentation skills. In this phase of the PhD project, there is still enough time to improve presentation skills and to start complementary work. Moreover, it is possible to forecast and manage risks together with the super-

visor and the help of for instance a us-ers committee.

Another cause of serious delays, or sometimes even failures, happen when the supervisor and PhD re-searcher together decide to give (the wrong!) priority to spending all eff orts on pursuing “cutting-edge” results in-stead of making a start on the thesis. I think that both the supervisor and PhD researcher should make sure that this does not happen.

While cutting-edge results are impor-tant to win awards, they should not be

pursued at the risk of ending up with nothing. After all, we are scientists, not poker players! In any case, it would be much better to end with a thesis, which represents the achievements of the researcher after four years, and it might also ultimately mark an impor-tant milestone towards award-winning achievements!

If the prospects are positive and the funds can be found, one or two val-orization years could be added during which, for instance, improved designs are made, more papers are published, a thesis is upgraded to the level of a book, and awards are received.

Of course, such an additional phase should end up with another defense and, if successfully accomplished, with another degree: Super PhD.

Prof. Gerard Meijer

His master’s voicecontribution from the professors

we need better risk management to be performed by both the supervisor and the PhD researcher

Prof. Gerard C. M. Meijer was born in Wateringen, The Netherlands. He received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the TU Delft in 1982. Since 1972 he has been a member of the Research and Teaching staff of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, TU Delft, where he was engaged in research and teaching on analog ICs and smart sensor systems. Since 2001 he is a full professor of the Laboratory of Electronic Instrumentation of the same university. In 1984 and part-time during 1985-1987, he was seconded to the Delft Instru-ments Company in Delft, where he was involved in the development of indus-trial level gauges and temperature trans-ducers. In 1996 he co-founded the com-pany SensArt, where he is a consultant in the fi eld of sensor systems. He received the title award of “Simon Stevin Meester from the Dutch Technology Founda-tion. In 2009, he was appointed as a PhD mentor for the EEMCS faculty at TU Delft, where he helps the PhD students in resolving confl icts, risks and personnel issues that they might encounter during their tenure.

[email protected]

The editors of HP wish to thank Vijay Rajamaran his contribution to make possible the publication of this article.

18 het proefschrift

Hans Suijkerbuijk

Sylvie Soudarissanane

Sylvie Soudarissanane (S): Hans, you are involved in the PhD policy pro-gram of TU Delft. What is the status of the Bologna Process at TU Delft?Hans Suijkerbuijk (H): The Bologna Process was adopted in 2003 in The Netherlands. It aims at transforming and unifying the higher education across Eu-rope. One of the noticeable results of this process is the introduction of the Bach-elor’s and Master’s degree programs in the Dutch academic world. To complete the basic framework of this process, the 3rd cycle, namely the Doctoral degree still needs to be implemented at the TU Delft. The growing number of PhD can-didates present signifi cant challenges to the current situation at the TU Delft.

S: What has been done to improve the PhD policy at TU Delft?H: In 16 of January of 2007, the executive board of TU Delft decided to set-up a PhD Policy Task Force, aiming at investigat-ing the current situation regarding the recommendations and updates of the former PhD Policy Coordination Group

and the practical recommendations on PhD policy at TU Delft in the near future.In October 2007, a fi rst proposal on the PhD policy task force was submitted to the Executive Board. The task force presented a survey on the existing PhD programs at the TU Delft. Several defi -ciencies were exposed. First, the qual-ity of the supervision is aff ected by the increasing number of PhD candidates, which keeps on growing every year. Sec-ond, several suggestions proposed in 2004 were still not implemented. Finally, the increasing number of international

students emphasizes the need to adapt TU Delft’s organization to attract more European and International PhD candi-dates.

S: What is the outcome of this fi rst proposal?H: It stresses the urgent need to improve the PhD programs at the TU Delft. A list of 18 recommendations for improve-ment of the PhD program were stated, which dealt with two types: On the one hand internal improvements: They con-cern the structure, the infrastructure, the supervision, the recruitment process and the PhD process as a whole. On the other hand external improvements: It mainly focuses on the reputation of TU Delft as an international research university.Many of these suggestions are already implemented in the current PhD pro-gram. However, since the beginning of the year 2009, a step forward has been made in the improvement of the PhD policy by introducing the idea of Gradu-ate School.

From the other sidea view on research from another perpspective

interviewed by

Hans Suijkerbuijk is currently work-ing as policy advisor for the execu-tive board of the TU Delft. Before he worked at the University of Tilburg and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) as policy advisor on education, with, in between a cul-tural side step by working as coordina-tor of a project named ‘cinematheque’ connected to a movietheatre and the University of Maastricht. Hans studies on Philosophy of Healtsciences and Culture of Arts, Sciences en Technol-ogy.

[email protected]

a step forward has been made in the

improvement of the PhD policy by intro-ducing the idea of Graduate School.

© Nadiafotografeert

19spring 2010

TU Delft is inspired by the Graduate

School model of the Imperial College in

London.

S: What is the current state of the education and training for PhD’s at TU Delft?H: PhD candidates and post-doctoral researchers are given the opportunity to participate in the education and train-ing proposed by Research Schools. The Research Schools are interuniversity and organized horizontally within fac-ulties. TU Delft is the leading institution of 9 KNAW-accredited Research Schools. Accreditation by the Research School Accreditation Committee (ECOS) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) is seen as an important mark of quality. Since the introduction of the Bologna process, many collaborating universities have shifted their attention from Research Schools to start their own Graduate School programs.

S: How is the Master’s program cur-rently linked to the PhD program?H: The Dutch ministry of education asks for a complete integration of the PhD program in the Master’s program, TU Delft however looks into possiblities of creating ‘honorstracks’ in order to gradu-ally incorporate the new educational system. Generally, more than 90% of the Master’s students, after finishing their de-gree, begin to work in a company. Current Master’s programs do not offer courses to prepare students for a PhD program.

S: How far is the implementation of the Graduate School model at TU Delft?H: As TU Delft does not wish to follow the Graduate Schools model present in the USA, a pilot study has been conducted that involves four faculties: Applied Sci-ences (TNW), Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Sciences (EWI), Mechanical, Maritime and Materi-als Engineering (3mE) and Architecture (BK). The pilot study began in March 2009. Each faculty had to provide their

view on two main questions: The first is what would be the best way to integrate the Graduate School concept in the ex-isting curriculum? and the second is how should a Graduate School be organized?

S: And what is the outcome of that pilot study?H: It was provided at the end of October 2009, and the outcome of this survey re-sulted in a very similar framework to all the involved faculties. The framework deals with five main aspects of the Grad-uate School: the quality, the govern-ance, the Doctoral educational content, the integration to the Master’s program and the Doctoral supervision quality.

S: You said that TU Delft does not wish to follow the American Gradu-ate School model. Which model does TU Delft want to follow in-stead?H: As a successful example, TU Delft is inspired by the Graduate School model of the Imperial College in London. This model is very flexible and transparent. Each faculty provides input to the Grad-uate School system to make it evolve.

S: How would the Graduate School be organized within TU Delft?H: The elaboration of the framework based on the pilot study leads to a pre-liminary structure. A general TU Delft Graduate School administration will be

common to all the faculties. It will be the TU Delft Graduate School umbrella, gov-erned by TU Delft. The quality standards of the recruitment process is assessed by the TU Delft Graduate school. Moreover, the preliminary graduation criteria will also be defined and verified (by this Of-fice). The TUD GS will function as a front office, with underlying the locale and dis-ciplinary oriented Graduate Schools.

S: When would this Graduate School model be operational?H: This framework should be elaborated during this year and be operational al-ready in September 2010 within some faculties. The Graduate School should be fully part of the TU Delft organizational aspects in January 2011.

S: Finally, what do you think the Graduate School would bring to TU Delft, concerning the internal and external prospects?H: The way TU Delft considers a Graduate School is that the PhD programs are for-tified; TU Delft identity is expressed and its established reputation is improved; the structure and the requirements are clarified for the PhD candidates (newly arrived and already in the process) in terms of transparency of content and procedures.

20 het proefschrift

Euraxess:Your Access to the

Netherlands

A career in academia is more often than not an international career. A quick Google search for resumes of academ-ic staff around the world shows that most researchers and professors have worked in at least a handful of coun-tries. For many researchers, their PhD track is the start of this international career. Now it would be great if PhD candidates could simply focus on their research projects. Unfortunately, in practice, there are many bureaucratic and financial issues to be faced as well.

Take Mr X from Indonesia, PhD candi-date at a Dutch University. During his 4-year PhD track, he will most likely spend half a year in Germany, and he is also arranging to spend some time at a research lab in the United Kingdom. With every move, many questions and bureaucratic issues are waiting to be tackled. Does Mr X need visas or work permits for these countries? Is his fel-lowship enough to obtain residency in that particular country? Will he be able to open a local bank account to make daily life a bit easier? Does he need to take out local health insurance or will he be covered through his previously bought insurance policy? Is he eligible to participate in a pension scheme in these countries and – if so – how will he get his money by the time he reaches pension age?

As boring these questions may seem,

they all reflect important issues. Many researchers are fortunate enough to have friendly support staff at their uni-versity or research organization who are more than happy to help them out. In many cases, however, it may also be left to the researcher himself to col-lect all the necessary information from various organizations or websites. Needless to say, lack of – correct or complete – information may well re-sult in a lot of hassle. Examples include delayed arrival because of errors in visa application, or financial troubles due to additional medical expenses caused by an incorrect insurance situ-ation.

Euraxess the Netherlands is an infor-mation platform that gives foreign researchers and their families access to information about working and liv-ing in the Netherlands. Our services include an extensive English language

website and an e-newsletter. Behind Euraxess the Netherlands is an experi-enced team with expertise on all those topics that Mr X might struggle with – and more. Rather than just point out yet another website, our mobility advi-sors will help you out with your query themselves.

In co-operation with Academic Trans-fer, our website also offers an overview of research job vacancies in the Nether-lands. Moreover, we have information available on fellowships and grants. All of our services are provided free of charge.

Can Euraxess the Netherlands also ad-vise on Mr X’s questions about mov-ing to Germany and the UK? Well, we try our best. But fortunately, Euraxess is a network that has representations in more than 30 European countries. If we’re unable to find the answer, our colleagues across Europe will gladly offer their expertise and advise you on their national situation.

More information? Come and find us at www.euraxess.nl.

Marlies Rexwinkel

linksuseful things to know about

Marlies Rexwinkel (Netherlands) is a Mobility Issues Advisor at Nuffic, the Netherlands organization for interna-tional cooperation in higher education.

[email protected]

21spring 2010

Jong Delft NetworkGive Your TU Delft

Career a Boost

When you start as a PhD candidate at TU Delft, you are entering the working class. This could almost sound creepy, although you do not enter just any working class. TU Delft offers a thrill-ing and complex surrounding, where not only science is being brought to a higher level, but where many people, with many different backgrounds, in-teract to keep the organization strong and its reputation high.

If you would like to meet all these di-verse colleagues and get acquainted with each other’s activities, if you want to learn from each other and learn about the TU Delft, there is a network within the university which you should definitely become part of: Jong Delft (Young Delft).

Jong Delft aims specifically at TU Delft staff under the age of 36 years (both scientific and supporting members). Our goals are to create an active, pro-fessional network for young TU Delft staff members, to help young staff members develop their professional skills and to promote awareness of TU Delft, who we are and what we do.

We organise activities on a regular ba-sis. These include visits to the various parts of TU Delft, lectures, workshops, drinks and parties. Every year we chose a theme around which to organise our lectures. In 2009 this was ‘Profiling the TU Delft’. In 2010 the Delft Research

Initiatives will be our main centre of attention; they will be asked to each provide an informative and interactive lecture. Through these lectures and our other activities we hope to famil-iarise you with the TU Delft as a whole and your colleagues in particular.

The activities of Jong Delft usually take place at the end of the day, so that they are easy to combine with a regu-lar work day. For our workshops you will have to make a little more time in your schedule, since these often take up whole afternoons. At the moment we are looking into the possibilities of offering a ‘starter’s kit’ for young em-ployees longing to give their career an early boost, with such courses as time-management, networking skills and other very useful trainings. We hope to be able to give more informa-tion about this project in the very near future.

Because the university considers Jong Delft to be an important platform for young employees, we benefit from an annual budget to run our programme. This means that most of our activities are free of charge. Since we strive to make our activities accessible for as many people as possible, most are in English.

We welcome you to join our network. You can find more information on our website: www.jongdelft.tudelft.nl.

Moreover we have our own commu-nity on LinkedIn. If you would like to be kept updated on coming events, you can subscribe to our mailing list by sending us an email ([email protected]). Of course you can also con-tact one of us directly for any specific questions.

We very much look forward to welcom-ing you at one of our activities!

Jong Delft

Jong Delft Board members are Michiel Munnik (chairman), Linda Gaffel (execu-tive Secretary), Kim Colman (activities coordinator), Willem van Valkenburg (ICT), Marlies Overbeek (PR).

[email protected]

linksuseful things to know about

22 het proefschrift

Upcoming Eventsstay tuned with Promood

Promood has big plans for 2010.

We’re inviting Deepa Kundur, associate professor from Texas A&M University to speak at PhD career networking event scheduled for April 15. Deepa con-ducts research and teaches in the areas of cyber security electric smart grids, security and privacy of sensor and so-cial networks, connectivity and securi-ty of wireless directional link networks, multimedia security and processing, and information forensics.

She has won numerous awards for her research including the outstanding Professor Award at her university.

Deepa will deliver a keynote lecture on career development for PhDs followed by networking session between TU Delft PhDs and industry professionals that have completed their own PhD.

One of the problems we’ve noticed about career development initiatives at TU Delft is that they do not cater to the unique nature and specialized course

of study associated with a doctoral degree. For this reason we’re inviting top industry professionals that have completed PhDs to discuss share their insights on career progression. We’ll be matching these people with PhDs that have completed a similar course of study in order to make the interac-tion more valuable.

Spaces are limited (read: coveted) for this event. We’ll be opening registra-tion for this event next month, please check the website for more details.

Deepa will also be giving a substantive lecture on her research titled “Modern Security Systems” earlier in the day. This will take place from 12:00 – 13:00 at the Faculty Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science in lecture room D on April 15.

As part of our efforts to influence PhD Policy at TU Delft, Promood will also organize a Roundtable discussion on “The Future of PhD Education at TU Delft” . This discussion will bring to-gether interested stakeholders such as Jong Delft, DEWIS, etc. to discuss PhD reform proposals such as the creation of a graduate school at the University.

PhD career networking eventApril 15th

In order to promote excellence in su-pervision, Promood is running a com-petition to find the TU Delft Supervisor of the year 2010. For that we will need your help! If you think your supervisor has made an outstanding contribution to your progress, tell us why.

If you think you supervisor is over-the-top and should be seen as a role model for other supervisors, you can have the chance winning him or her recognition

within the University and a prize. Fol-low the submission procedures de-scribed in detail on our website. The winner will be announced at the an-nual PhD introduction day in October.

TU Delft Supervisor of the year 2010Check the website for these and other events scheduled for the year. These include:

Wine Tasting ;

Beach Volleyball;

Introduction to diving event;

Visit to the Keukenhof gardens;

And speed dating (maybe!) with the University of Leiden!

Other Events

www.promood.tudelft.nl

Dr. Deepa KundurTexas A&M University

23spring 2010

Meet the Boardmembers of PromooD board 2009/2010

PresidentRajen Akalu(Bristol, UK) is a PhD candidate at the Department of Economics of Infrastructures, TBM Faculty

Social Activities and EventsAlberto González(Valladolid, Spain) is a PhD candi-date at the Department of Sofware Technology, EWI Faculty

Secretary and WebmasterMarko Mihailovic(Belgrade, Serbia) is a PhD candi-date at Dimes (Delft Institute of Microsystems and Nanoelectron-ics), EWI Faculty

TreasurerYue Chen

(Zibo, China) is a PhD candidate at the Department of

Microelectronics, EWI Faculty

TreasurerAnne Lorene Vernay

(Bourg St Maurice, France) is a PhD candidate at the department of

Technology Dynamics and Sustain-able Development, TBM Faculty

Public RelationsIrem Erbas

(Izmir, Turkey) is a PhD candidate at the Department of Building

Technology, BK Faculty

Internal Affairs / PhD PolicySylvie Soudarissanane(Orleans, France) is a PhD candi-date at the Department of Math-ematical Geodesy Positioning, LR Faculty

Legal AffairsEmiel kerpershoek

(Leiden, The Netherlands) is a PhD candidate at the Department of

Policy, Organization, Law & Gam-ing, TBM Faculty

Career DevelopmentNishant S. Lawand (Satara, India) is a PhD student in the Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory (EI Lab), EWI Faculty

MarketingMarcelo Gutierrez-Alcaraz (La Paz, Bolivia), is a PhD candidate

at the Department of Electrical Sustainable Energy, EWI Faculty

Career DevelopmentDevendiran Subbaiyan (Tamil Nadu , India) is a PhD researcher in the department of Micro-electronics and Computer Engineering , EWI Faculty

MarketingRodrigo Teixeira Pinto

(São Paulo, Brazil) is a PhD candi-date at the Department of Electri-

cal Systainable Energy, EWI Faculty.

External EventsJiaming Tan(China) is a PhD researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineer-ing, EWI Faculty

Editor “Het Proefschrift”Nelson Mota

(Mesão-Frio, Portugal) is a PhD researcher at the Department of

Architecture, BK Faculty

Other Events