Prof.dr. Frits Spieksma

Frits Spieksma obtained a M.Sc. degree in Econometrics from Groningen University in 1987 and a Ph.D. degree from Maastricht University in 1992. He was affiliated for more than nine years with Maastricht University, with a short sidestep to the University of British Columbia, became full professor at KU Leuven in 2001, before eventually joining TU/e in 2018.

Frits' main research interest is in the field of combinatorial optimization, with a particular emphasis on problems that have the potential to affect practice. He has supervised more than 10 PhD students, many of whom found their way to academia. He is founder of the EURO Working Group OR in Sports, which aims to bring together quantitative research related to sport. He is a member of the steering committee of MAPSP (Models and Algorithms for Planning and Scheduling Problems), and of the steering committee of MathSports International. 

Frits serves or has served on the editorial boards of Operations Research Letters, INFORMS Transactions on Education, Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, IIE Transactions, Computers and Operations Research, OMEGA, and 4OR. He has published overd 100 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.