Toon van Waterschoot

Toon van Waterschoot

Toon van Waterschoot
Toon van Waterschoot

Toon van Waterschoot is the Principal Investigator of the KU Leuven Audio Engineering Lab. He is currently a Professor at KU Leuven and Campus Chair of the KU Leuven Group T Leuven and De Nayer Sint-Katelijne-Waver Campuses.

Biography

As of 2022, I am a Professor (hoogleraar) at KU Leuven, Belgium. I am affiliated to the Stadius Center for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing, and Data Analytics (STADIUS) at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT) and to the Group T Leuven Campus at the Faculty of Engineering Technology (FET).

In 2001, I graduated as a Master in Electrical Engineering at KU Leuven, after which I spent a year as a teaching assistant with the Hogere Zeevaartschool Antwerpen, Belgium. One year later, in 2002, I returned to KU Leuven to start a PhD research project on signal processing applied to audio and acoustics, funded by the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT-Vlaanderen), which I succesfully terminated in 2009 under the supervision of Prof. Marc Moonen. In 2010, I moved to Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, where I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Prof. Geert Leus, working on distributed signal processing for wireless sensor networks. In 2011, I received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen), which enabled me to return again to KU Leuven for initiating a 3-year research program on acoustic signal enhancement in cooperation with Prof. Marc Moonen and Prof. Moritz Diehl. In 2013, I was appointed as an Assistant Professor at KU Leuven, Belgium, where I am currently supervising a team of researchers working in the field of audio engineering and signal processing. From 2013 to 2016, I have also been serving as a Scientific Coordinator for the FP7-PEOPLE Marie Curie Initial Training Network “Dereverberation and Reverberation of Audio, Music, and Speech (DREAMS)” funded by the European Commission. In 2017, I have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC), which has allowed me and my research team to explore the analysis and synthesis of complex dynamic sound scenes in the ERC project “The Spatial Dynamics of Room Acoustics (SONORA)”, 2018-2023. I was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018 and to Professor in 2022. From 2021 to 2025, I have been coordinating the H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie European Training Network “Service-Oriented, Ubiquitous, Network-Driven Sound (SOUNDS)”.

I have been teaching various courses at the Faculty of Engineering Techology and the Faculty of Engineering Science of KU Leuven, including digital signal processing, control theory, signals & systems, optimization, multimedia, databases and web design. I have also been teaching digital signal processing (with Prof. Marc Moonen and Prof. Søren Holdt Jensen) at the Advanced Learning and Research Institute (ALaRI) of the University of Lugano, Switzerland. My current teaching activities are mostly in mathematics and signal processing, including courses on algebra, calculus, geometry, systems theory, digital signal processing, and extended reality at the Campus Group T of KU Leuven.

Over the past years, I have been increasingly committed to scholarly service and academic leadership, both within and outside of KU Leuven. From 2021 to 2024 I have led the Stadius Center for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing and Data Analytics, a KU Leuven research division that has been involved in numerous fundamental and applied research projects including 8 ERC grants. Since 2024 I have been chairing two of KU Leuven’s twelve campuses, Group T Leuven and De Nayer Sint-Katelijne-Waver, jointly hosting roughtly 500 staff members and 2000 students. I have been serving on various technical committees and boards for international learned societies such as IEEE, EURASIP, EAA, and AES, with a primary commitment to the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP) where I am currently Executive Director. I have developed a strong vision on excellence in research and teaching, open science, societal commitment, and well-being in academia, which I consistently implement in my policymaking activities.

Next to my academic career, I’ve been spending quite some time studying and playing music. I’ve been involved in the composition and performance of a wide range of musical styles, from experimental trash rock over electronic music to classical and early music. I started studying music at the age of 8, and since then I’ve been performing and touring with a number of rock bands, small ensembles, and orchestras, in Belgium as well as abroad. I’ve been lucky to have several inspiring musical mentors with whom I’ve been studying brass instruments (flugelhorn, bass), string instruments (guitar, violin), and keyboard instruments (piano, organ). In 2001, I obtained a violin diploma (summa cum laude) and in 2020 an organ diploma in the Flemish part-time music education program. I am currently again enrolled in such a program, now studying both harpsichord and organ and focusing on early music. Finally, I also enjoy renovating old houses, volunteering in all kinds of organizations, and of course spending time with my wife and three kids.

Academic CV

Degrees

  • PhD in Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium, Mar. 2009
  • MSc in Electrical Engineering, *KU Leuven, Belgium, Jun. 2001

Academic Positions

  • Professor (hoogleraar, tenured), KU Leuven, Belgium (2022-ongoing)
  • Campus Chair, Group T Leuven & De Nayer Sint-Katelijne-Waver Campus, KU Leuven, Belgium (2024-ongoing)
  • Head of Stadius Center for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing, and Data Analytics, Dept. Electrical Engineering (ESAT), KU Leuven, Belgium (2021-2024)
  • Associate Professor, KU Leuven, Belgium (2018-2022)
  • Assistant Professor (tenure-track), KU Leuven, Belgium (2013-2018)
  • Visiting Lecturer, University of Lugano, Switzerland (2005-2016)
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen), KU Leuven, Belgium (2011-2014)
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands (2010-2011)
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, KU Leuven, Belgium (2009-2010)
  • PhD Fellow of the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT-Vlaanderen), KU Leuven, Belgium (2004-2007)
  • Research Assistant, KU Leuven, Belgium (2002-2009)
  • Teaching Assistant, Antwerp Maritime Academy, Belgium (2002)

Awards

  • IEEE IWNIA 2025 Best Student Paper Award (Y. Masa’d, G. Vitolo, M. Sakr, D. Tornila Jichi, Y. Hussein, V. Lorenzoni, and T. van Waterschoot, “A mobile Wi-Fi and IMU head-tracking sytem for auralization in XR”), 2025 IEEE International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds, L’Aquila, Italy, Oct. 2025 (Co-author)
  • KU Leuven “Golden T” Teaching Awards: Best course material (2025), Mega Mind (2024), Most inspiring professor (2021), Best online lectures (2021), Best organised professor (2019), Most approachable professor (2019), Best course in the (bio)chemical engineering program (2019), KU Leuven Campus Group T Student Council, Leuven, Belgium, 2019-2025.
  • AES Europe 2024 Best Student Paper Award (J. Cadavid, M. B. Møller, S. Bech, T. van Waterschoot, and J. Østergaard, “Spatial sampling versus acquisition time of room impulse responses for low-frequency sound zones”), AES 2024 Europe Convention, Madrid, Spain, Jun. 2024 (Co-author)
  • WASPAA-2021 Best Paper Award (T. Dietzen, E. De Sena, and T. van Waterschoot, “Low-complexity steered response power mapping based on Nyquist-Shannon sampling”), 2021 IEEE Workshop Appls. Signal Process. Audio Acoust. (WASPAA ’21), New Paltz, NY, USA, Oct. 2021 (Co-author)
  • Immovable Heritage Prize (Audience Prize) for Saint Norbert’s Gate / Library of Voices lab renovation project (with Alamire Foundation), Flemish Agency for Immovable Heritage, 2019
  • ERC Consolidator Grant, European Research Council (ERC), 2018.
  • Board of Governors Award, Audio Engineering Society (AES), Milan, Italy, 2018
  • EUSIPCO-2016 Best Paper Award (M. Mounir, P. Karsmakers, and T. van Waterschoot, “Guitar note onset detection based on a spectral sparsity measure”), 24th European Signal Process. Conf. (EUSIPCO ’16), Budapest, Hungary, Aug. 2016 (Co-author)
  • Best Master Thesis Prize (Mina Shehata, “Note Onset Detection Using Sparse Over-Complete Representation of Musical Signals”, supervised by Prof. Miroslaw Malek (University of Lugano, Switzerland) and Prof. Toon van Waterschoot (KU Leuven, Belgium)), Swissengineering Ticino, Lugano, Switzerland, Mar. 2014 (Supervisor)