Søren Debois
Associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen; researching digitalisation, process modelling and security.
About me
I'm interested in the intersection of process technologies and security, in particular in finding technical solutions to situations requiring trust between parties. This interest has lead me to both applications of process modelling technologies to enforcement in security, as well of applications of blockchain technologies to process management.
I am a principal author on the DCR process modelling notation, where my work revolves around the principle that because processes at companies are complex, a process model is must be a concise representation of a complex thing. In this space, I have made theoretical contributions on modelling, subprocesses, concurrency, expressive power, mining, analysis. On the practical side, I have conducted case studies to demonstrate the efficacy of the approach, and I am the architect of the DCR Workbench, and have contributed substantially to the core mechanic of the commercial dcrgraphs.net process engine through a combination of knowledge transfers, "bestilt forskning", and outright consulting.
I am work-package leader in the Innovation Fund Denmark funded EcoKnow project between ITU, KU, DTU, KMD, Exformatics, Københavns Kommune, Syddjurs Kommune, Kammeradvokaten, GlobeTeam and others. My research agenda here is relating law texts to it systems through declarative process models, with the eventual aim of guaranteed compliant ("lovmedholdig") case-management by municipal governments.
I appear regularly as an expert on it-security in Danish news media, in particular on radio.
At the ITU, I am the Head of Study Programme for the study lines Master of Software Engineering and Software Design. I received the ITU's 2017 "Excellence in Teaching Award". Subsequently, a cat was almost named after me.
Recent publications
Below is a selection of recent papers; older works can be found via DBLP, Google Scholar, or my ITU summary page.
Open to Change: A Theory for Iterative Test-Driven Modelling
Tijs Slaats, Søren Debois, and Thomas Hildebrandt.
To appear in Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM '18),
2018
Blockchains for Business Process Management - Challenges and Opportunities
Ingo Weber, Jan Mendling, Wil van der Aalst et. al.
In ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS),
Volume 9:1, pp. 4:1–4:16, February 2018.
Collaboration among Adversaries: Distributed Workflow Execution on a
Blockchain
Best Paper Award (Honorable Mention)
Mads Frederik Madsen, Mikkel Gaub, Malthe Ettrup
Kirkbro, Tróndur Høgnason, Tijs Slaats, and Søren Debois
In Symposium on Foundations and Applications of Blockchain 2018
(FAB '18), 2018.
On Purpose and by Necessity: Compliance under the
GDPR
Featured on the
morning paper
David Basin, Søren Debois, and Thomas Hildebrandt
In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on
Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC '18),
2018
The DCR Workbench: Declarative Choreographies for
Collaborative Processes
Søren Debois, Thomas Hildebrandt
Chapter of Behavioural Types: from Theory to Tools,
2017
Teaching
This fall, I'm teaching Distributed systems, Security 1, and Security 2.
I only take student projects that have a non-zero probability of eventually becoming a research paper, and for which you are genuinely enthusiastic. (Otherwise, the whole process become dreadful and ultimately unsatisfying for both of us.) I am not interested in supervising I-just-want-to-finish implementation projects. Conversely, when we find a topic that we are both enthusiastic about, I'll invest significant time and energy in helping you contribute something excellent.
If you are a student interested in writing a project with me, make sure there is some chance that my research agenda overlaps with your interest, then set up a meet.
Postmodern Affections
I occasionally consult on it-security, digitalisation, and process implementations, in particular on workflow implementations. Contact me if you think I could be helpful to you.
Contact
I make a point of being available for questions from the public or reporters, for speaking engagements, and for occasional consulting.
I usually answer e-mail within 24 hours. However, for time-critical matters, feel free to phone me.