Two directors of education for LIACS
Matthijs van Leeuwen and Frank Takes have been appointed directors of education at LIACS as of 1 September. They will succeed Marcello Bonsangue, who has held the position since 2016. Van Leeuwen and Takes have been appointed for a period of four years.
'We used to have only one director of education at LIACS,' scientific director Aske Plaat explains. 'But because of the growing number of students, we decided to divide the tasks between two people. This is also the case at other institutes within our Faculty. I am very happy that Frank and Matthijs are willing to take on this task.'
Teacher of the year
Frank Takes is an Associate professor in Network Science. He studied and obtained his PhD in Computer Science at Leiden University. You can see on his CV that Takes has a heart for education. He supervises bachelor’s, master’s and PhD students, was chairman of the education committee and member of the Leiden Teachers Academy. In 2017, the students of the Faculty of Science chose him as Teacher of the Year.
New bachelor
Aske Plaat is happy with Frank as Director of education: 'Frank is an excellent teacher who can organise things well. In September, the new bachelor Data Science and Artificial Intelligence will start. He is the right person to further streamline and professionalise this programme.
Takes will be Director of education of the bachelor's programmes in Computer Science and Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. He is also responsible for the minors Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security Governance Essentials.
Senior Qualification in Education
Matthijs van Leeuwen is an Associate professor in Data Science. According to his profile page, he loves data, patterns, algorithms and information theory. But his heart also beats for education, as proven by the fact that he obtained the Senior Qualification in Education this year.
Master's programmes very popular
Matthijs is also an excellent teacher with great organisational skills, Aske Plaat continues. 'Our master's programmes are very popular, also with students from other programmes of our Faculty. It is quite a challenge as an Director of education to guarantee the high quality of such a diverse and growing programme. But I'm sure Matthijs can do it.'
From September, Matthijs van Leeuwen will be the Director of education of the Computer Science, Media Technology and ICT in Business and the Public Sector master's programmes. In addition, he is responsible for the LIACS component of the Science master's specialisation Business Studies and for the Science minor Science, Business and Innovation.