Christopher Brewster
Dr. Christopher Brewster is a Senior Scientist in the Data Science group at TNO, and Professor in the Application of Emerging Technologies at the Department of Advanced Computing Sciences, Maastricht University. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Sheffield (2008) where his thesis concerned the automated learning of ontologies from text. Following his PhD, he became a Senior Lecturer at Aston University (UK) before joining TNO.
The focus of his research has been in the use of semantics in real world applications, covering topics such as standards, interoperability, architectures for interoperability, and consequent issues with data security and control. More generally his research concerns the application of semantic technologies, FAIR data principles, and data governance, with a special interest in food, agriculture and (more recently) biodiversity.
Recent publications include "IoT in agriculture: Designing a Europe-wide large-scale pilot" (2017), "Data Sharing in Agricultural Supply Chains: Using semantics to enable sustainable food systems" (2024) and "Geospatial Framework for Assessing the Suitability and Demand for Agricultural Digital Solutions in Europe" (2025). He has given a number of invited lectures particularly in the context of his work on food safety and interoperability. A major current focus is the role that technologies can play in the protection of biodiversity, and he has written an internal white paper positioning TNO with regard to biodiversity.
At TNO, he is currently Lead Scientist on the HEU Quantifarm project. At Maastricht, he is the Principle Investigator of the HEU EU FarmBook project, the HEU BioFIN project, and he is currently coordinator of the HEU OpenAgri and the Ambrosia projects.
Events
| Title | Day | Room | Track | Start | End |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solving Europe's problems with Open Source |
Sunday | UA2.118 (Henriot) | Open Source & EU Policy | 13:55 | 14:30 |