A true Rotterdammer, with a passion for his profession. That’s perhaps the best way to summarize PhD student Dalmeijer in a single sentence. We meet him in his office, a compact but functional room on the 7th floor of the Tinbergen building. A soon-to-be professor, Mr. Dalmeijer has an air of confidence over him, and greets us with a generous smile.
A short summary of his life thus far teaches us that this Rotterdam native is an alumnus of the econometrics programme of the Erasmus University himself and was approached during his masters for a PhD position, which he happily accepted.
So why does one choose to pursue a career in research and not the largest paycheck?
First of all it’s just super fun! Of course everyone is faced with the decision of whether you want to go into business or research, and for me research is just the perfect combination of teaching and doing new stuff. Unlike in business, where focus lies on profit, research allows me to utilise the newest and most innovative techniques. Not only can I solve all sorts of mathematical puzzles, which I really like, but I also spend around 20 percent of my time on teaching. Teaching has for long been a passion of mine, and is something I already picked up during my studies as a Teaching Assistant for tutorial groups. So a PhD was really a golden combination for me!
Did anything strange ever happen to you while teaching?
Well, actually something did occur during one of the lectures I was giving, which was being recorded as well. During the break someone from FAECTOR had an announcement, and afterwards people started clapping. So I joked: “well if you applaud someone who just gave a one-minute announcement, I expect an applause as well.” When I was done one guy stood up and just started slow clapping. And I still got it on video.
What kind of student were you?
I was really motivated; you could probably call me a nerd. This was also reflected in my grades, I believe I was the first one to graduate summa cum laude for both my bachelor and master in econometrics here at the ESE. However, over time I found out that there was more besides studying, and I managed to allocate more time to other subjects as well.
Now you seem really fond of doing research, but what did you dream to become when you were 3 years old?
Perhaps a little strange, but I wanted to be a bus driver. My father is a truck driver, so especially when I was young I thought trucks were really cool. At one point you do switch to more suitable alternatives though, and if I nowadays see the bus drivers in their bus all day I am pretty sure it would not have been my cup of tea. Although I do like to think about back in the day, when my dad would come and pick me up with his truck: very impressive.
Perhaps a little strange, but I wanted to be a bus driver.
Do you have anyone who you look up to or who inspires you?
I would say my family, who were always there for me and helped me achieve what I have achieved thus far. However, if I look from an academic point of view I would probably go for George Dantzig, who could be considered to be the king of operations research. A teacher of mine once said: you have BC and AD, but in operations research we have Before Dantzig and After Dantzig.
What is your main research area?
What I do in research is vehicle routing and logistics, that sort of stuff. If you want to learn more on that, I wrote a non-technical explanation of my research. ( https://www.erim.eur.nl/centres/last-mile/blog/ ) If you are interested in this subject, you should think about courses like linear programming and combinatorial optimisation.
What do you do in your free time?
I’m actually a big fan of TV series. I watch a lot of shows. I think the Walking Dead will be starting next week again. But, I also like a lot of comedy shows, like Brooklyn 99, or more police sort of shows; Chicago PD. So, there is a lot of shows I like to watch.
I try to work out a little as well. I go to fitness twice a week, here at Erasmus Sport. And, recently I started with inline skating. I like getting outside as well. It’s more fun than being on a treadmill inside.
I also like to travel. I can’t do that always of course. The nice thing with doing a PhD is that once or twice a year you go to a conference and if you are lucky, they’re in nice locations. If you are there, you can usually attach a holiday as well. So, the university arranges that you can go to the conference, but when you are already there, it’s relatively cheap and worthwhile to also take a vacation there. I’ve been to Corsica, the island of France, last year and this year, we had a conference in Aruba. It was very convenient, because we could take a holiday of a week afterwards, in which we went to all the beaches and had some real Arubian food. That’s a benefit of doing a PhD.
What is your favorite theorem or equation?
That would be Euler's equation:
It’s a cool formula, where you have e, like 2.71... and it’s to the power of i times pi, which doesn’t make sense, multiplied by 3.14.. and you add 1, and suddenly it’s exactly zero. So, there are 4 numbers there, which are totally unrelated, and still it’s equal to 0. It’s super beautiful.
What kind of music do you like?
Well, that’s funny; I cannot work with all types of music. Some people here work with classical music. I can’t do that. It’s too distracting. What I can work with is country music. So, like the modern country; it’s closer to rock. An advantage is that it’s not difficult, pretty straight forward. Lyrically, often not that advanced. It allows me to work quite well. Nowadays, I listen more to Tropical House as well.
In my free time, I sometimes do listen to metal music. I have a brother who is a quite big metal fan. So, together with him, I often go to concerts.
What is something students don’t know about you?
That I have a tosti maker in my office. I stole the idea from a student association which used to be here. In each break, we would smell the molten cheese. Everyone thought “We need that as well.” Now, once in a while, we organise these events where we make something special. We already made waffles – I have a waffle iron here as well. Last time, we made “hamdogs”, a new thing which is a hamburger, cut in half with a hotdog in the middle.
If you were a pizza, which pizza would you be?
I would be the Pizza Deluxe from Dominos with cheesy crust and extra garlic sauce.
I would be the Pizza Deluxe from Dominos with cheesy crust and extra garlic sauce. On Saturdays, Dominos Pizza has cheap pizzas for €5 per pizza. So, we often grab pizza and watch some series. That’s my favorite pizza.
What are your plans for the future?
I am going to Canada next year for a while. So, in this PhD program, you are allowed to visit another university for a few months and write a paper together with the people there. From March onwards, I will go to Canada, most likely for a few months ,which will be very interesting, as I will be working with one of the most important professors in my field.
However, I’m going to Montreal, and I didn’t realise that it’s in the French speaking part of Canada. So, I’m currently trying to learn French. I’m not really successful yet. I’m on a 60 days streak on Duolingo, but I don’t practise it very hard. After my PhD, I think it might be time to go to another university or another country for a while. I mean, I studied and lived near Rotterdam for almost all my life. I think it would be fun to maybe work in another country for a few years, but we’ll see next year how I like that.
What do you expect from the students in this course?
Well, of course, the basic thing is that they take the course seriously, work on the material and make sure that they make it their own, that they understand what’s going on. What I hope from students is that at one point they get enthusiastic, think that it’s nice what they are doing and get a feel for non-linear optimisation and why it is interesting. So, I really hope, and I often saw this in the previous years, that they go further than bare minimum to pass the course, that they really appreciate what we are doing.
This year, I’m also planning to put up some more challenging exercises. So, if you really think the course is too easy, which I hope you do, there are some exercises which are more difficult. Maybe I can solve them myself, or maybe I can’t, but the students can try to find the best possible solution. Students often surprise you with solutions you totally didn’t expect.