Research

My research theme is sustainable digitalisation. This includes both research on energy consumption of software, and inclusion/privacy research. Read more on my profile on my about page.

Download my PhD thesis about sustainable software (2016)

Publiciations

Projects

Currently:

  • Lifecycle assessements of software (funded by TNO; started in 2024).

  • Choosing the most energy efficient algorithm at runtime (internally funded; started in 2023).

  • NOLAI Sustainable data lead (together with Erik Poll), including supervising a PhD project on Assuring Privacy and Security of Research Data (€ 270k), part of the larger National Education Lab AI (called NOLAI). PhD project started in 2023;

  • Trade offs between public values in the data driven energy transition (internally funded, started in 2023).

  • ERC proof-of-concept project (€ 150k): creating a privacy impact assessment dashboard for metal health apps (together with TILT, Tilburg, started in 2022).

Past (obtained, or took part in):

  • CHARTER (EU Artemis project);

  • Formally verified Network-on-chips (funded by Intel);

  • Resident participation ('burgerparticipatie') with IRMA (funded by the Dutch minstery of interior affairs).

  • Twid (50k, funded by SIDN Fonds): introducing authenticity on the Twitter platform to battle misinformation.

  • PEP-NOLAI project (~2100k): creating the digital infrastruce for the National Education Lab AI.

  • REACT project (300k): Extending PEP: instead of bringing the data to the algorithms (as is the case with PEP), the algorithms can be computed at the storage location of the data.

  • PEP project (~1700k, funded by EU EFRO): a privacy-friendly data repository for medical data research.

  • ERC Proof of concept (150k): privacy in mental health apps, together with Tilburg University.

  • Proof-of-provenance;

  • Bootstrapping PubHubs.net;

  • C4Yourself (introducting pseudonyms for small scale medical research).

Current PhD students

  • Alireza Soltani Nezhad, energy consumption of software (started 2024).

  • Job Doesburg, safely reuse a system to store privacy-sensitive data in a new and changing context (started November 2023).

  • Jordy Aaldering, saving energy by adjusting software behaviour to dynamic conditions (started Oct 2023).

  • Kyra de Korte, digital technology for the energy transition (started Jan 2023).

Graduated students

  • Roy van der Steen (MSc, RU, 2023): The organizational hurdles of structurally reducing the energy consumption of software.

  • Stefan Weijers (BSc, RU, 2023): A feasibility study on analyzing and predicting client-side energy consumption of web browsing.

  • Max Philipsen (MSc, RU, 2023): Evaluating the validity of an advisory tool on accessibility measures.

  • Jarno Alberts (BSc, RU, 2023): Integrating energy consumption feedback in agile development processes.

  • Koen Verdenius (MSc, RU, 2023): How do authenticity methods affect perceptions of tweets? (PDF).

  • Dirk Doesburg (BSc, RU, 2023): Signatures in IRMAseal.

  • Luuk Godtschalk (MSc, TU/e, 2022): Accountability and Access Control using Anonymous Credentials.

  • Tea Coros (BSc, RU, 2022): The security risks of unverified and recycled email addresses.

  • Shravan Sukumar (Internship, RU, 2022): Threat Analysis of Current Build System and CI/CD System for eduVPN Apps.

  • Randy Putgens (Internship, OU, 2022).

  • Hans Lous (BSc, RU, 2022): The Influence of Graph Metrics on the Performance of Pathfinding Algorithms.

  • Martijn Heitkönig (Internship, RU, 2022): Protecting immutable software from anonymous attackers.

  • Steven Wallis de Vries (Internship, RU, 2022): eduVPN internship report.

  • Jos Craaijo (MSc, RU, 2021): libLISA: Learning Instruction Set Architectures from scratch.

  • Marc Verwoert (MSc, RU, 2021): Cyberattack scenarios for remote electronic voting consultations using IRMA.

  • Fu-Rianne Veens (MSc, RU, 2021): Online voting and the secret ballot in the Netherlands exploring citizens’ perceptions in local consultations.

  • Willem van Oort (Master stage, RU, 2020): ECA: creating a case study.

  • Matthijs Spaans (Master, OU, 2020).

  • Gunnar Noordbruis (Bachelor, RU, 2020): Energy efficient WLAN using WiFi standards b/a/g/n/ac on an Archer C7 AC1750 access point.

  • Tom Nikken (Master stage, RU, 2019).

  • Robert Buitendijk (second supervisor, Master, OU, 2018).

  • Robbin van den Berg (Master, OU, 2019).

  • Mitchell Duim (Master, OU, 2019).

  • Mark Westenberg (Master, OU, 2019).

  • Hans van de Pol (second supervisor, MSc, OU, 2018).

  • Erik de Brouwer (Master, OU, 2019).

  • Erin van der Veen (Master stage, RU, 2018).

  • Pascal van Gastel (no family ties, Master, OU, 2017).

  • Sven van Valburg (Master stage, RU, 2016).

  • Roel Heirman (Bachelor, OU, 2016).

  • Koen Buitenhuis (Master stage, RU, 2016).

  • Jelle De Laender (Bachelor, OU, 2016).

  • Stefan Versluys (Bachelor, OU, 2015).

  • Jeroen Kleijn (Bachelor, OU, 2015).

  • Guus Bonnema (Bachelor, OU, 2015).

  • Stijn Keijzers (Master, RU, 2014).

Student project ideas

  • Energy analysis of the AEOS access control system of NEDAP (together with Artur van Leeuwen of NEDAP).

  • Implementing symbolic execution visualize energy consumption of external devices for Rust;

  • Carbon assessments of software;

  • Compare energy consumption of Bw-Trees with B-Trees and other data structures (LSM Tree?), using the test set up in our Software Energy Lab;

  • Adding energy consumption to tracing frameworks for anaylsing production deployments;

  • Extending GitLab to enable teams to save energy in their IT products;

  • Creating a test framework for Rust energy testing, based on criterion;

  • Using snapshots of production data to energy profile IT applications;

  • How to specify sustainability requirements during insourcing ('inkoop') of IT products;

  • Energy consumption of different GUI frameworks (intermediate-mode, retained, etc);

  • Comparison of async runtimes in Rust and C++, on properties such as memory usage, energy consumption, kernel calls, etc;

  • Microservice architecture using pseudonimization for central identifiers (using libpep);