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About Me
I'm pursuing a PhD at the University of Antwerp in the lab of Prof. Guillermo A. Pérez. My research focusses on applying techniques from formal methods to AI and dynamical systems. Aside from research I also teach four courses on compilers, software engineering, and computer architecture.
Publications
Graph-Based Reductions for Parametric and Weighted MDPs
Kasper Engelen, Guillermo A. Pérez, Shisha Rao
ATVA 2023, vol 1, pp 137–157
Analyzing Value Functions of States in Parametric Markov Chains
Kasper Engelen, Guillermo A. Pérez, Shisha Rao
Principles of Verification: Cycling the Probabilistic Landscape, part II, pp 145–165. 2024.
Mobility
ESSLLI 2023 summer school
Ljubliana, SloveniaAugust 2023
This was a summer school on logic, language, and computation. I attended courses on linear arithmetic, formal language theory applied to RNNs, PAC learning of logical formulas, natural language parsing, etc.
MOVEP 2024 summer school
Rennes, FranceMay 2024
There were courses on SMT-solving, model checking, and reinforcement learning. This was also a great opportunity to meet other people in the field of theoretical computer science.
BNAIC 2024 conference
Utrecht, NetherlandsNov 2024
I attended talks on reinforcement learning and SAT-solving and had the opportunity to meet many interesting people doing research in AI.
Storm days 2025
Nijmegen, NetherlandsMarch - April 2025
This event brought together researchers that make use of the Storm model checker. People presented their Storm-related research during various talks and we brainstormed (pun!) on how to further improve Storm.
BeNeRL 2025
Eindhoven, NetherlandsJuly 2025
This was a workshop that brings together reinforcement learning researchers from across Belgium and the Netherlands. People could attend a number of talks by invited speakers and also had the opportunity to present their own poster. In between the talks there were various opportunities to network and meet interesting people.
Academic service
- Organising committee CONFEST 2023 (CONCUR, FORMATS, QEST, FMICS)
- External reviewer for AAMAS 2024
- External reviewer for ECAI 2025
Teaching
Teaching assistance
I oversee the lab sessions of multiple courses:
- Computer systems and architecture: a course where students build their own CPU in Logisim, a simulator for digital circuits.
- Project software engineering: a project over the course of an entire semester where students have to put together a software system. In doing so, the students have to pay attention to project management, software testing, quality control, and object oriented programming principles.
- Compilers: groups of students build a compiler that translates C code into LLVM IR, MIPS, and native binary code.
- Software engineering: in this course we cover a different topic in each lab session. Topics include formal methods, software testing, software architecture, quality control, etc.
Thesis supervision
I have supervised multiple thesis and research projects on topics that are related to my PhD, such as reinforcement learning and dynamical systems.
Education
Bachelors in Computer Science
University of AntwerpSep 2016 - Feb 2020
- Grade: distinction
- Elective courses on computational biology and applied logic.
Masters in Computer Science
Specialisation Data Science and AIUniversity of Antwerp
Sep 2019 - Jun 2022
- Grade: great distinction
- Thesis on Graph-Based Reductions for Parametric and Weighted MDPs.
- Elective courses on neural networks, functional programming, and data science ethics.