Sarah Eskens is an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, holding roles in the Faculty of Law and the Law & Technology department. Her research focuses on EU legal frameworks governing disinformation, obligations of messaging apps under the Digital Services Act (DSA), and intersections of media law, data protection (GDPR), and platform regulation. She holds a research master’s in Information Law (University of Amsterdam, 2016) and a PhD on fundamental rights in personalized news media (University of Amsterdam, 2021). Teaching responsibilities include coordinating the International Technology Law master’s specialization, teaching European data protection law, and supervising internships and theses in this specialization. She is actively engaged with ancillary roles, such as serving as a committee member on the Commissie Meijers. Her work bridges legal theory and practice, addressing contemporary challenges like AI in journalism, data retention policies, and platform governance. Key research themes include DSA compliance, media freedom, and balancing privacy with national security. Her publications analyze regulatory frameworks, AI ethics in media, and legal responses to emerging technologies. She frequently contributes to public debates through media commentary and expert panels, addressing issues like illegal content on platforms and teenage social media regulation.
Arno R. Lodder is a Full Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam's Department of Transnational Legal Studies and a core member of the Amsterdam Law & Technology Institute. His research focuses on cyber law, data protection, privacy, AI ethics, and e-commerce regulation. He has supervised 12 PhD theses and serves as a judge at the Amsterdam District Court. Lodder has authored/co-authored over 30 books, including Cyberlaw in the Netherlands and EU Regulation of E-commerce . Teaching responsibilities include courses on Internet Law, AI Governance, and Cybersecurity within the university's Dutch and English legal programs. His ancillary activities include roles at SURF (Dutch educational network) and membership in international legal committees. Research interests span liability frameworks for emerging technologies, online dispute resolution mechanisms, and balancing digital innovation with legal safeguards. Recent work addresses GDPR challenges, algorithmic accountability, and regulatory responses to AI and social media. Lodder's interdisciplinary approach bridges law, technology, and policy, with active participation in global debates on digital governance and cybercrime. He has advised on high-profile cases involving platform liability, privacy in IoT systems, and cross-border cyber incidents.
Reinout de Vries is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences and IBBA (Institute for Behavioural and Brain Science) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, specializing in Organizational Psychology. His research focuses on personality traits (e.g., HEXACO, TNT), their applications in work and organizational settings, and the use of AI for personality assessment. He has authored over 176 publications and actively contributes to academic discourse through editorial roles and media commentary. Research Interests: Personality Psychology (HEXACO Model) Workplace Dynamics and Leadership Psychometrics and Assessment Technologies AI-driven Personality Evaluation Social and Organizational Behavior Recent Articles: Highlighting advancements in personality assessment via large language models, the impact of nonnormative traits on social preferences, and meta-analyses of HEXACO traits. These studies bridge theoretical models with practical applications in hiring and leadership. Awards/Grants: Secured the NWO Open Science Fund (2023) to support transparent research practices. Media contributions include expert commentary on leadership, assessments, and ethical hiring. Advising & Grants: Supervised 8 PhD theses and collaborates on grants promoting open science. Teaching includes courses like Personality at Work and Personality Theory and Assessment. Labs/Teams: Active in interdisciplinary teams at IBBA and VU, focusing on behavioral and brain sciences research.
Dr. Marvin Neumann is an Assistant Professor in Organizational Psychology at the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He also holds an appointment at the IBBA. His research focuses on algorithmic decision-making in HR contexts, emphasizing predictive validity, autonomy, and ethical implementation of mechanical prediction systems. Neumann has been awarded the 2023 Abbas prijs and the 2024 Best dissertation award for his contributions to selection psychology. His work bridges psychological theory with practical applications in personnel selection and educational testing. Notable contributions include guidelines for decision-rule design and studies on overcoming algorithm aversion in organizational settings. Neumann teaches advanced courses like Human Resource Development and M&D3: Individual and Organizational Diagnosis, emphasizing evidence-based practices. Neumann has published widely in journals such as the Journal of Business and Psychology and Computers in Human Behavior , with a focus on improving advisor systems, transparency in algorithms, and the human factors influencing algorithm adoption. His research network includes collaborations with institutions like the University of Minnesota and frequent peer-review roles for leading journals in selection assessment.
Dr. Anne-Sophie Mayer is an Assistant Professor at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation within the School of Business and Economics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on how emerging technologies like AI reshape organizational work and professional identities. She holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Passau (2021) and a Master’s in International Culture and Business Studies from the same institution (2018). Her academic background also includes dual bachelor’s degrees in International Business Studies from Hochschule Harz and Otago Polytechnic. Research Interests: Anne investigates the impact of AI on professional roles, workplace dynamics, and knowledge generation. Notable areas include AI-driven decision systems, platform economy effects, and barriers to digital innovation adoption. She employs empirical methods such as case studies and field research to explore these topics. Key Achievements: Recipient of the 2021 JAIS Best Paper Honorable Mention Award (2022) Winner of the Best Paper Proceedings AOM 2022 Teaching: She co-teaches Digital Innovation and Virtual Organizing in a Global Setting and contributes to Working and Organizing in a Digital Age . Labs/Teams: Active at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation, focusing on digital transformation and innovation ecosystems.
Florian Kunneman is a Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, affiliated with the Artificial Intelligence department, Network Institute, and Social AI. His research focuses on human-robot interaction (HRI), conversational agents, dialogue management, and applying NLP to public health and guideline development. He has contributed to over 30 peer-reviewed publications and led projects integrating stakeholder experiences into clinical guidelines and advancing ego-speech filtering for social robots. His work bridges technical AI advancements with ethical considerations, particularly for marginalized communities. Research Interests: Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Conversational Agent Design Natural Language Processing (NLP) for healthcare and social media analysis Ethical implications of AI for marginalized groups Real-time audio processing for social robots Recent Contributions: His 2025 HRI conference paper explores how robots communicate their capabilities to users, enhancing natural conversations. In 2024, he published foundational work on dialogue management systems and a near-real-time audio filtering pipeline for robots. He also co-authored a practical guide using NLP to incorporate experiential knowledge into vaccination guidelines. Projects: "Evidence in Actie" (2020-2024): Leveraged NLP to standardize experiential knowledge in public health guidelines. Robust speech processing for robots: Developed algorithms to filter self-generated speech (ego-speech) during human-robot conversations. Labs & Collaborations: Active in the Social AI team and Network Institute, collaborating with researchers in robotics, ethics, and healthcare. His work often involves interdisciplinary teams addressing societal challenges through AI innovation.
Patricia Rogetzer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Business Information Systems at TU Delft. Her expertise spans Artificial Intelligence applications in education, sustainable supply chain management, circular economy strategies, and urban logistics. She has held previous roles as a Postdoctoral Researcher at TU Munich (2018–2020) and Research and Teaching Associate at Vienna University of Economics and Business (2013–2018). Her research addresses challenges in integrating AI technologies with learning systems, optimizing urban infrastructure projects, and advancing circular supply chain frameworks. Her work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in fostering sustainable consumption and production patterns (SDG 12) and sustainable cities (SDG 11). She has contributed to methodologies such as Circular Value Stream Mapping and stakeholder engagement frameworks for Hubs of Circularity. Her research also explores automation in defect management, traffic disruption mitigation during urban renovations, and the potential of cargo bikes in city logistics. Key Research Themes: AI in Education, Urban Infrastructure Scheduling, Closed-Loop Supply Chains, Circular Economy. Awards: 2021 BMS faculty Graduation Award (supervision). Activities: Active participation in conferences such as the 15th ISIR Summer School (2021) and the International Conference on Computational Logistics (2021). Rogetzer’s publications emphasize interdisciplinary approaches, combining operational research with sustainability goals. Her recent work highlights trends in AI-driven educational tools and the application of machine learning to optimize urban infrastructure projects.
Douwe Dresscher is an Assistant Professor with dual affiliations in Robotics and Mechatronics and the Digital Society Institute. His research focuses on advanced robotics, teleoperation systems, and haptic feedback technologies, with applications in surgery and energy-efficient control systems. He contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals through innovations in robotics for sustainable practices. Research Interests : His work spans teleoperation control architectures, human-robot interaction, haptic feedback in medical robotics, and energy-aware system design. He explores embodied telepresence and cognitive aspects of motor learning in tele-robotic environments. Collaborations : Active in global research networks, his recent studies address challenges in surgical robotics and dynamic object segmentation for tele-robotic systems. He emphasizes operator-centric design principles and perceptual embodiment for enhanced teleoperation performance. Key Contributions : Over 28 publications since 2012, with recent focus on bidirectional impedance reflection control, embodiment in tele-robotics, and haptic feedback for liver surgery. His work bridges theoretical control systems with practical applications in healthcare and energy efficiency.
Pengjie Ren is an academic lecturer specializing in information retrieval, recommendation systems, and conversational AI. He holds teaching roles in courses such as Introduction to Big Data Processing Technology, Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics, Ph.D Professional English, and Statistical Natural Language Processing. As a supervisor, he has guided both PhD and Master's students in research-oriented projects. His research focuses on advancing conversational systems, generative models, and reinforcement learning applications in recommendation systems. He has contributed to top conferences like SIGIR, WWW, AAAI, and ACL, with notable work on knowledge-grounded dialogues, sequential recommenders, and debiasing techniques in AI. Pengjie actively serves the academic community as an organizing committee member (NLPCC 2021, YSSNLP 2021) and workshop co-chair (SIGIR AIIS 2020, WSDM NLP4REC 2020). He is also a program committee member for major conferences and a reviewer for journals like TOIS, TKDE, and IPM. His teaching and research emphasize practical applications of AI in dialogue systems, privacy-aware recommendation, and multi-domain learning, with a focus on bridging theory and real-world implementation.
Benedict Dellaert is a Professor of Marketing at the Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is a Fellow of ERIM (Erasmus Research Institute of Management) and a research fellow at the Tinbergen Institute. His research focuses on consumer decision-making and consumer-firm interaction, with applications in digital marketing, financial services, healthcare, and travel. He has collaborated with firms like Achmea and APG on projects involving online risk communication and personalized recommendations. Professor Dellaert’s academic journey includes former positions at the University of Sydney, Tilburg University, Maastricht University, and Monash University (Melbourne, fractional). He is also affiliated with the Network for Studies on Pensions, Aging and Retirement (Netspar). His research explores topics like robo-advice regulation, pension risk preferences, and behavioral decision-making. His recent work emphasizes the interplay between algorithm quality and digital choice architecture in financial decisions, as well as the design of interactive tools to support consumer decisions (e.g., the Distribution Builder for pension planning). He has contributed to health-related studies, such as discrete choice experiments for osteoporosis drug treatments and colorectal cancer screening participation. Key themes in his publications include behavioral economics applications, consumer trust in AI-driven systems, and the optimization of recommendation systems. His work often bridges theory and practice, aiming to improve real-world decision-making processes in finance, healthcare, and retail.
Marc Schuilenburg is a Professor of Digital Surveillance at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He holds a PhD in social sciences from VU University Amsterdam and has extensive experience in criminology, public safety, and algorithmic governance. His research focuses on the intersection of AI, algorithms, and societal impacts, particularly in public safety and surveillance. He leads projects like the EU-funded KOBAN and NWO's AI-Maps, exploring ethical, legal, and societal dimensions of AI in policing and public security. Education: BSc/MSc from Erasmus University Rotterdam (Law and Philosophy), PhD in Social Sciences (VU Amsterdam). Visiting professorships include John Jay College (NY, 2013) and University Campus Suffolk (2014–2020). Research Interests: Digital surveillance, AI ethics, algorithmic governance, security studies, and cultural criminology. He emphasizes 'careful' design of AI tools aligned with democratic values like fairness and transparency. Notable works include Making Surveillance Public (2024), Hysteria (2021), and The Algorithmic Society (2021). Scientific Awards: Winner of the Willem Nagel Prize (2014) for his PhD on urban security assemblages. Recognized for interdisciplinary contributions to surveillance studies and criminology. Grants/Projects: Leads AI-Maps (4-year NWO program on AI in public safety) and KOBAN (EU-funded community policing framework). Collaborates on studies about predictive policing, data ethics, and smart city governance. Labs/Teams: Initiator of the Dutch Surveillance Studies Network. Active in global research networks addressing AI's societal implications.
Raul Zurita-Milla is a Full Professor at the University of Twente, holding dual appointments in the Department of Geo-information Processing and the Digital Society Institute. His research focuses on spatiotemporal analytics, geospatial machine learning, and environmental modeling, with applications in public health, climate change, and sustainability. Key areas include wastewater-based epidemiology, phenological analysis, tick dynamics modeling, and open science practices. He co-founded the Open Science Community Twente in 2020, promoting reproducible research and collaborative frameworks. His expertise spans geoinformatics, machine learning, and environmental science, contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goals related to health, climate action, and biodiversity. Notable achievements include the 1st place TU Delft Water for Impact Best Paper Award (2024) and leadership in developing open-source tools like the CGC Python package for geodata clustering. His work integrates interdisciplinary approaches, blending computational methods with real-world environmental and societal challenges. Zurita-Milla’s research outputs include over 155 peer-reviewed publications and 16 datasets, emphasizing reproducibility and open science. Collaborations span global institutions, addressing topics such as false spring detection, agent-based disease modeling, and sustainable wastewater surveillance systems.
Günter Wallner is an Assistant Professor (Part-time) in the Systemic Change Cluster within the Department of Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He simultaneously holds positions as Professor for Game Computing at Johannes Kepler University Linz, Adjunct Professor at Ontario Tech University, and Senior Scientist at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Institute of Art & Technology. His work bridges multiple institutions and focuses on the intersection of games, data analytics, and visualization. Wallner's academic credentials include: Diploma in Computer Science from University of Technology, graduated with distinction in 2005 Doctoral degree in Natural Sciences from University of Applied Arts Vienna, graduated with distinction in 2009 His research program centers on understanding player behavior in games and developing methods to explore and communicate collected data for actionable game design insights. Wallner's expertise spans three interconnected domains: games user research examining player engagement, data analytics specifically for game-related behavioral datasets, and information visualization techniques for representing complex game data. A significant portion of his work focuses on creating data visualizations to support analysis of increasingly large-scale player behavioral datasets used in game analytics. Wallner's recent publications reveal several key research trends. His work shows a strong focus on visual analytics for games with multiple papers exploring effective representation of player behavior through visualization techniques. There's growing interdisciplinary reach into healthcare applications, as seen in his 2024 paper on MR imaging preparation. Many publications address practical applications in competitive gaming environments like League of Legends and Hollow Knight. The interdisciplinary nature of his work is evident in publication venues spanning top-tier HCI conferences (CHI, CHI PLAY), visualization conferences (EuroVis), and specialized game research venues (FDG). Wallner has received various awards and recognitions for his work on games, though specific awards are not detailed in available information. As an active researcher, Wallner provides substantial service to the academic community. He frequently serves on program committees for games, visualization, and human-computer interaction conferences. He has held significant organizational roles including Program Chair for CHI PLAY 2019 and currently serves as Steering Committee Vice-Chair for CHI PLAY since 2023. His editorial work includes serving on boards of ACM Games: Research and Practice and Behaviour & Information Technology. He has been instrumental in organizing workshops such as the PLEY series on Eye Tracking in Games and Play. At TU/e, Wallner is affiliated with multiple research groups: EAISI Foundational, Industrial Design Research, and specifically the Design Of Empowering Systems subgroup. His work demonstrates extensive interdisciplinary collaboration across game studies, human-computer interaction, and data visualization researchers, particularly within the EAISI (Eindhoven Artificial Intelligence Systems Institute) ecosystem.
Hugh Desmond is an Assistant Professor at Wageningen University & Research, specializing in the philosophy and ethics of science and biology. He holds interdisciplinary degrees in physics/mathematics from KU Leuven and music performance from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and Conservatory of Paris. His research focuses on scientific explanation, trust in science, scientific integrity, evolutionary theory (including Darwinism and agency in evolution), and bioethics. He has co-edited volumes like Human Success and Evolutionary Thinking Across Disciplines , and published 32 peer-reviewed articles in top journals. Key research areas include the politicization of science, ethics of technology, and scientific professionalism. He co-leads the FWO-funded 'Professionalism in Science' project (€196,000) with Kris Dierickx. Desmond is a founding member of the Darwinism Network and the Embassy of Good Science, advocating for ethical scientific practices. His work bridges philosophy with societal challenges, emphasizing communication and integrity in science. Teaching responsibilities include courses on Data Science Ethics, Climate Change Strategies, and Consumer Studies for Sustainability at Wageningen University. His interdisciplinary approach integrates philosophical rigor with practical ethical dilemmas in modern science and technology.
Dr. Ellen van Kleef is an Associate Professor in Food Consumer Science at Wageningen University & Research, Department of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour. Her research focuses on how young people navigate healthy food choices in complex environments, leveraging social media insights and nudging strategies to design effective interventions. Key areas include the interplay between digital and physical food environments, healthier online shopping systems, and school lunch program implementation. She leads projects such as COMFOCUS (European food consumer science collaboration) and studies the impact of decision support systems on sustainable food choices. Recent work explores adolescent exposure to food marketing on social media and the efficacy of personalized health nudges. Ellen’s expertise spans consumer behavior, nutrition policy, and food literacy development, emphasizing practical solutions for public health challenges. **Education & Background**: Not explicitly detailed in the provided text, but her academic title (dr.ir.) indicates a PhD and engineering background. She holds an adjunct role in interdisciplinary research. **Grants & Projects**: Active in EU-funded initiatives (e.g., COMFOCUS) and national collaborations with retailers and universities to promote transparent, healthy food systems. Her team investigates behavioral economics principles applied to food environments, including school canteens and online platforms. **Labs/Teams**: Core member of the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour chair group, leading interdisciplinary teams in food environment studies and digital health interventions.
