Hi! I’m Jesse
I am a PhD student and teacher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I document this adventure on this website and on twitter.
Professional
Research
I do research on the scalability of Minecraft-like games. These games offer players a sandbox where they can let their creativity run free. This allows not only the game’s developer, but also its community, to participate in creating engaging and meaningful1 content for a world-wide audience.
But by providing players with such a sandbox, the game becomes significantly more complex. In addition to keeping track of what players are doing, it now also has to keep track of how the entire virtual world is changing. This limits the game’s scalability, making it impossible to play, explore, and learn together with large groups of players. My aim is to change this.
I do this research as a member of the Opencraft project. This is one of several long-term research projects run by the @Large group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
You can find my publications on the @Large website.
Teaching
I entered the world of teaching as a Teaching Assistant for the course Computer Organization while I was doing my Bachelors in Computer Science at the TU Delft.
Since then, I’ve been unable to stop teaching. I continued TA’ing throughout my Bachelors and Masters at the TU, worked as a full-time teacher at the TU for a year after graduating, and then started as both a teacher and PhD student at the VU.
In addition to teaching courses, I also supervise multiple students and student groups for courses and research projects associated with the @Large group.
Courses
| Course | Role | When? | Curriculum | University |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distributed Systems | Teacher | 2019, … | CS MSc | VU |
| Computer Networks | Teacher | 2018, 2019, … | 1st Year CS BSc | VU |
| Computer Networks | Teacher | 2018 | 2nd Year CS BSc | TUD |
| Computer Organization | Teacher | 2017, 2018 | 1st Year CS BSc | TUD |
| Computer Organization | Teaching Assistant | 2014-2016 | 1st Year CS BSc | TUD |
Education
I am currently a PhD student in the @Large group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
I obtained my MSc in Computer Science from the TU Delft. For my MSc thesis, I worked on increasing the scalability of (modifiable) virtual worlds using bounded inconsistency. My work is part of the Opencraft project, which aims to increase the scalability of Minecraft-like services by at least one order of magnitude. You can find my MSc thesis here.
I obtained my BSc in Computer Science from the TU Delft. During the BSc, I participated and completed the Bachelor Honors track. I completed the BSc cum laude. You can find my BSc thesis here.
Other stuff
I enjoy reading books, watching movies, playing video games, and, increasingly, playing board games. I try to occasionally post about these topics on this site.