Diederik Verkest holds a Ph.D. in Applied Sciences from the KU Leuven, Belgium. After working in the VLSI design methodology group of imec in the domain of system-on-chip design, he joined imec’s process technology unit as director of imec's INSITE program focusing on cooptimization of design and process technology for sub-7nm nodes. Since 2018 he is in charge of imec’s ML program aiming at improving energy efficiency of ML hardware through innovation in circuits and devices.