Jitse De Smet joins KNoWS

Hi all,

I’m Jitse De Smet, and I started a PhD at KNoWS on October first 2024. I studied Computer Science during my bachelor and later Computer Science Engineering in my master’s, both at Ghent University. After the course of Web Development by Ruben Verborgh I decided to start a student job at KNoWS. I ended up doing that job for 3 years, working on everything expressions in Comunica.

Being convinced about the need for abstraction in linked data querying, I decided to write my thesis under the supervision of Ruben Taelman. My thesis focused on abstracting data updates over a document-oriented interface of a permissioned decentralized environment. More practically, I looked at using Comunica as a query abstraction layer to provide a query interface over Solid pods.

While working on my master’s thesis, I decided that I wanted to pursue a PhD and submitted a project proposal at FWO. With much excitement, I was able to present my project, called Optimizing Write Performance in Decentralized Personal Data Ecosystems, to the expert panel. The project got accepted, and I look forward to working on the topic under the guidance of Ruben Verborgh, Ruben Taelman and others that I will meet along this journey.

Besides all this work, I spend my time bouldering (mostly indoors, but Fontainebleau, magic wood and Albarracín have been visited), playing board games, meeting up with friends and inline skating.

I look forward to meeting everyone reading this, and don’t hesitate to contact me.

Jitse De Smet