Department of Information and Computing Sciences
Buys Ballot Gebouw
Princetonplein 5
3584 CC Utrecht
The Netherlands
w.s.swierstra {at} uu.nl
© 2026. All rights reserved.
Department of Information and Computing Sciences
Buys Ballot Gebouw
Princetonplein 5
3584 CC Utrecht
The Netherlands
w.s.swierstra {at} uu.nl
© 2026. All rights reserved.
I am an universitair hoofddocent (roughly equivalent to associate professor) in the Software Technology Group of Utrecht University.
After studying Mathematics and Computer Science at the Utrecht University, I did my PhD under supervision of Thorsten Altenkirch at the University of Nottingham's Functional Programming Lab. I worked as a postdoc at Chalmers University of Technology, before moving back to the Netherlands to work at Vector Fabrics, a high-tech startup that used functional programming to facilitate the design of embedded systems. In 2011 I returned to academia as a postdoc in Foundations Group at the Radboud University. After Nijmegen, I moved to Utrecht on another postdoc position before becoming universitair docent (assistant professor) in 2013. In Utrecht, I have served in a variety of senior roles within the department, including Programme Leader of our BSc and MSc Computing Science programmes. Currently, I am the Programme Director of our Informatica BSc.
I am honoured to serve as Functional Pearl Editor for the Journal of Functional Programming. If you're considering submitting a pearl, you may want to read this advice.
And in case your wondering, here's how to pronounce my name.