Tom Goethals is a postdoctoral researcher at Research Foundation Flanders - FWO, with a focus on decentralized edge computing architectures since October 2024. Prior to this, Tom served as a senior researcher in cloud and services computing at IDLab and imec from June 2022 to September 2024, concentrating on large-scale edge service orchestration methods leveraging AI and swarm intelligence. Tom's academic journey culminated in a PhD in Computer Science from Ghent University between April 2018 and May 2022, alongside a Master's degree in Engineering and several relevant certifications from HOGENT. Tom also has extensive industry experience, having worked as a software engineer at Aucxis and as hoofdmedewerker informatica at Hogeschool Gent, contributing to various projects in software development, middleware integration, and e-learning platforms.