Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, DistriNet Research Group

The DistriNet research group at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven is a research center on software engineering, with extensive expertise in secure software engineering and middleware for distributed systems. DistriNet currently employs more than 60 researchers with approx. one fourth of these being post-docs.

DistriNet is actively engaged in multiple national and international projects and is part of the research institute IBBT. Experience has been accumulated in many application domains, often in close collaboration with industry. In addition, DistriNet has a strong track record of industrial training, dissemination and valorization.

More information: http://distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be/.

Key Staff

  • Prof. Frank Piessens is a professor at the K.U. Leuven, where he teaches a.o. courses on secure software, and on formal systems. His research interests are in security aspects of software and middleware, security architectures, Java and .NET security, and software interfaces to security technology. To foster cross-fertilization in web application security between academia and industry, Frank started up the academic track at the OWASP AppSec EU conferences in 2006 and co-organized the first three editions.
  • Prof. Wouter Joosen is a full professor at the K.U. Leuven, where he teaches courses on software architecture and component-based software engineering, distributed systems and the engineering of secure service platforms. His research interests are in software architectures and middleware, and in security aspects of software, including security in component frameworks and security architectures.
  • Dr. Lieven Desmet is the Research Manager on Secure Software at the K.U. Leuven, where he coaches junior researchers in web application security and participates in dissemination and valorization activities. His interests are in software verification and security of middleware and web-enabled technologies. Lieven is actively engaged in OWASP and is board member of the OWASP Chapter Belgium.