Rob van Nieuwpoort is full professor in computer science at Leiden Institute for Advanced Computer Science (LIACS). Previously he worked as the director of technology at the Netherlands eScience center, and full professor at the University of Amsterdam in the Systems and Networking Lab of the Informatics Institute.

More information about Rob van Nieuwpoort

Rob van Nieuwpoort’s research involves ways in which large-scale computing power can be used more efficiently in achieving scientific breakthroughs in various scientific fields. Over the past few decades, computers have changed fundamentally, and a shift has taken place in the balance between computing power and data transport. Computer processing speeds are increasing, but computers can’t feed the relevant data into the processors quickly enough. In addition, computers have become highly parallel: they carry out a lot of calculations simultaneously. Many scientific applications have been unable to keep up with these developments. As a result, much scientific software remains sub-optimal. Improving this software will result in faster large-scale data processing and enhanced scientific tools such as telescopes, climate simulations, particle accelerators, etc.

He develops new programming models that make the use of large-scale systems (so-called exascale computers) simpler and more efficient. In addition, energy efficiency also plays a crucial part. For large-scale scientific experiments such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, energy use is a limiting factor and a major expense. In these cases, software that uses energy more efficiently will have the immediate effect of increasing the sensitivity of the instruments.

His second research interest is eScience. The field of eScience promotes the use of digital technology in research. eScience brings together IT technology, data science, computational science, e-infrastructure and data- and computation-intensive research across all disciplines, from physics to the humanities. He works on bridging fundamental computer science research and its application in exciting scientific disciplines.