Rik Van de Walle

Rik Van de Walle obtained a master’s and subsequently a doctoral degree in engineering physics. After a visiting post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona (Tucson, USA) he returned to Ghent University to pursue an academic career.  

As a researcher and a professor, Van de Walle’s specialties involved multimedia applications, systems and signals, and data science. He set up the Multimedia Lab, which would grow into a very large research group, renamed as Internet and Data Lab and currently encompassing more than 400 professors and researchers across departmental and even university boundaries.  

Multimedia Lab/IDLab was one of the founding research groups of IBBT/iMinds, which has been integrated in 2016 in imec – one of the world’s largest R&D hubs for next-generation semiconductor research. Since 2016, Van de Walle is a member of the Board of Governors of imec.  

From 2012 until 2017 Rik Van de Walle was Dean of Ghent University’s Faculty of Engineering and Architecture. From October 2017 to September 2025, he serves as Rector of Ghent University.

From October 2025 on, Rik Van de Walle will contribute to the further development of IDLab and its contributions to the development of 'The Brain – AI Tech Hub Ghent', Tech Lane Ghent Science Park, and Ghent University as a whole, with a particular focus on internationalization and networking. The aim being to strengthen existing collaborations with knowledge institutions and companies and to explore opportunities for setting up new partnerships based on a shared vision, shared ambition and excellence.

He is the former President of CESAER (2020-2023), an association of 50+ universities of science and technology in Europe and beyond, and of VLIR, the Flemish Inter-University Council. He is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.