Interview

We interviewed Chris Zeinstra, assistant professor of the Data Management and Biometrics group (DMB). Most bachelor’s students know Chris from his second-year courses, Continuous Linear Systems and Digital Signal Processing, but there are plenty of other courses he’s working on, in addition to various research topics such as forensic biometrics and embedded artificial intelligence. Throughout the interview, we asked Chris all kinds of questions, from his role in education and opinion on the current curriculum, all the way to what kind of a student he was, and what makes a perfect student in his eyes. ...

On 06-11-2021 the Scintilla website was unreachable for several hours. Three days later, the same thing happened again, and again a few days later. What happened? Due to several well-targeted DDoS-attacks, spread over several days, the Scintilla website was down for many hours in a row. During these attacks, Scintilla’s members were not able to sign-up for activities, use their web-mail, access the VPN or access files. In this edition of the Vonk, you read all about what a DDoS-attack is, how it could cripple Scintilla’s systems and what is being done to prevent these problems in the future. ...

We interviewed Sabih Gerez, assistant professor of the Computer Architecture of Embedded System (CAES) group. While bachelor students may not be acquainted with him, he is well known under a large portion of the master students Electrical Engineering. All the students who followed the mandatory course System-on-Chip Design have met this busy man. Besides teaching one day (on paper) at the University, Sabih also runs his own company. During this interview we asked him all about combining industry with education. ...

What is going on at the other side of the screens? That is what we, the Vonk committee, asked ourselves after experiencing several weeks of online classes. How are our teachers doing? What do they think about online teaching? Do they miss us already? About a month ago we decided to start an ambitious project, we wanted to interview as many teachers as possible who had to deal with the online classes. ...

We visited Bram Nauta, professor in Integrated Circuit Designing and head of the research group Integrated Circuit Design(ICD). The University of Twente is really honoured to have Prof. Nauta as a reknowned professor here. There is continuous advancements that are happening in the field of ICD thanks to Bram. He has received a lot of Titles including awards such as Simon Stevin Meester Award which is the largest Dutch National prize for Technical Achievements. ...

The students of Electrical Engineering can prize themselves lucky, since they have not one, but two study advisors! Kirsten Voncken is responsible for bachelor students in EE as well as master students in EE and Embedded systems, but we can assume you know her from the Vonk junction in Edition 3 from 2017. If not, then another interesting junction is waiting for you. The other study adviser, Nesar Moshtaq, has not been properly introduced in the Vonk yet. ...