Rik has always been fascinated with analyzing and modelling the world around him. He has been interested in areas as diverse as mechanical and civil engineering, rocket science, biology and fundamental physics. He started his academic career in pure mathematics, but at the same time, he developed a passion for data science and machine learning. In the middle of his PhD he decided to completely switch research direction and now studies applied mathematics and machine learning. He also keeps a blog where he toys with diverse topics in data science.