Maruf Dhali

M.A. (Maruf) Dhali, Dr. is an Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen's Bernoulli Institute (Faculty of Science and Engineering) and concurrently holds an Assistant Professor position in the Qumran Institute (Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society). He specializes in machine learning, pattern recognition, and computer vision with a focus on historical document analysis, particularly the Dead Sea Scrolls. His work bridges AI and cultural heritage preservation.

Education: Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence (ERC-funded project on Dead Sea Scrolls), M.Sc. (Distinction) in Computer Vision, Machine Learning & Robotics (Heriot-Watt University, 2015). Additional studies at the Universities of Burgundy (France), Girona (Spain), and Edinburgh (UK).

Research Interests: Machine Learning applications in historical document analysis, handwriting recognition, deep learning, and probabilistic robotics. His work has been featured in PLoS ONE, Springer LNCS, and international media including BBC News and The Independent.

Grants & Projects: Principal Investigator for NWO HAICu Project (2024-2030) on Dutch cultural heritage data. Formerly part of the ERC-funded Dual-mode Time Axis Calibration project (2016-2021).

Awards: Knapp Lecture Scholar at the University of Oxford (2025). Invited speaker at global institutions including KU Leuven, University of Basel, and NTNU.

Teaching: Coordinates courses like Pattern Recognition, Deep Learning Practical, and Handwriting Recognition. Co-teaches interdisciplinary modules such as Apocalypse and Politics and The Text Awakens.