Dr. Euwe van den Berg is a Part-Time Lecturer in Physics Teacher Education at the ELAN school of the University of Twente. He also serves as a consultant for the SLO Formative Evaluation Project. His academic background includes a PhD in Science Education and a Master's in Physics. His research focuses on science education methodologies, formative assessment techniques, laboratory teaching practices, and the integration of quantum physics concepts into educational curricula. Key interests include innovative demonstration techniques and conceptual understanding development through digital tools. Van den Berg has contributed to over 118 research outputs, emphasizing practical applications of physics education research. He received the Minnaert Prijs in 2015 for academic contributions. His activities include organizing workshops on effective chemistry practices and presenting at educational conferences.
Dirk Inghels is an Associate Professor of Operations Analytics at the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (since 2016). He also serves as R&D Director at Aluminum Duffel BV, Belgium. His expertise spans sustainable supply chain management, waste valorization, and operations research integration. He holds a PhD in Operations Management from VU Amsterdam (2016), alongside advanced degrees in Industrial Engineering and Management (TU Eindhoven), Industrial Management (University of Ghent), and Electro-Mechanical Engineering (University of Antwerp). Research focuses on sustainable supply chains, including municipal solid waste management and end-of-life vehicle recycling in Flanders. Key contributions include integrating life cycle assessment into supply chains and modeling circular economy transitions in aluminum production. Notable awards include the Aleris Chairman Award (2019, 2014) and the Business Excellence Award 2020. His work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly environmental sustainability. Recent articles emphasize circularity in automotive supply chains and waste collection optimization via memetic algorithms. Teaching includes courses on sustainable business processes and operations management.
Dr. Agnes Willemen is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She holds positions in the Clinical Child and Family Studies department and affiliated research institutes APH (Mental Health/Quality of Care) and LEARN! (Child Rearing). Her research focuses on family-centered approaches in healthcare, youth care, and education for vulnerable groups such as children with chronic illnesses, disabilities, or psychological challenges. Key areas include parental collaboration, sibling support, and teacher-child interactions. She directs the Master in Education program, emphasizing self-regulated learning and online education development. Research Highlights: Developed the serious game 'Broodles' to support siblings of disabled children Investigated shared decision-making in pediatric care and burnout among parents of children with complex needs Validated tools like the S-Scan-PS for parental self-management support Awards: KnowVU Innovation Award (2016), ISED Article Prize (2009), Samen op Koers Grant (2008). Grants: Includes projects on collaborative learning in schools (€315k, 2014) and chronic disease interventions (€449k, 2008). Teaching: Coordinates courses in pedagogy and promotes a positive learning culture through initiatives like the VIPP-School video feedback program.
Elco Koks is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, within the Water and Climate Risk group at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM). His research focuses on disaster impact modeling, critical infrastructure resilience, network analysis, and macroeconomic consequences of natural hazards. He leads projects like Horizon Europe’s MIRACA, CoCliCo, and RECEIPT, addressing climate adaptation and infrastructure vulnerability. Education : PhD in Environmental Studies (2016) MSc in Spatial, Transport and Environmental Economics (2011) BSc in Earth and Economics (2010) Research Interests : Elco combines interdisciplinary approaches to assess economy-wide disaster impacts, integrating natural hazard models with macroeconomic frameworks. His work emphasizes cascading infrastructure failures and systemic risks, supported by tools like GitHub-hosted disaster impact models. Articles Trends : Recent work explores AI-driven infrastructure detection, climate change impacts on power grids, and systemic risk from compound disasters. His studies highlight the need for adaptive strategies in coastal and urban systems. Awards : VENI Grant (NWO, 2019) Advising & Grants : Supervises 8 PhDs on infrastructure risk and economic impacts Principal Investigator for projects totaling over €10M, including EU Horizon grants Labs & Teams : Engaged in interdisciplinary teams at IVM, focusing on global critical infrastructure resilience and climate adaptation strategies.
Benno Kruit is a Visiting Professor at the Department of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His research focuses on knowledge representation, semantic web technologies, and AI applications in data interpretation and system dynamics. He has contributed to projects involving knowledge graphs, ontology engineering, and question answering systems. Key areas include semantic interpretation of tables, fault diagnosis in cyber-physical systems, and scalable simulation models. His work spans interdisciplinary topics such as environmental data analysis, agricultural informatics, and multilingual entity disambiguation. Kruit has co-developed platforms like TAKCO and Tab2Know for knowledge extraction from tables. He teaches the course Knowledge and Data and has contributed datasets like Tab2Know evaluation data to the research community. Recent research highlights include exploring open-source RAG systems, ontology-based simulation frameworks, and constrained LLM approaches for official statistics querying. His publications reflect a strong emphasis on practical applications of AI in knowledge integration and domain-specific problem-solving.
Dr. Jiahuan Pei is an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, affiliated with the Faculty of Science's Department of Artificial Intelligence, the Network Institute, and Social AI. His research focuses on advanced AI applications in dialogue systems, natural language processing (NLP), and large language models (LLMs), with particular emphasis on clinical and therapeutic contexts. Recent work includes improving conversational recommendation systems, enhancing psychotherapy dialogue generation through motivational interviewing strategies, and developing multilingual dialogue management techniques. Key research topics include information retrieval robustness in LLMs, parameter-efficient fine-tuning methods (e.g., MELoRA), and the ethical integration of AI in healthcare. He has contributed to seminal studies on dialogue alignment, faithfulness metrics for citations, and perceptual quality in 3D point clouds. His work often bridges theoretical NLP advancements with practical applications in healthcare, education, and mixed reality environments. Pei's articles reflect a strong focus on innovation in dialogue systems, with over 15 peer-reviewed publications since 2020. He teaches the Project Conversational Agents course, emphasizing hands-on AI development. Collaborations span academic and industry partners, addressing challenges in cross-lingual communication, therapeutic AI, and multimodal training systems.
Atze van der Ploeg is an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam's Faculty of Science, within the Theoretical Computer Science department. He is also affiliated with the Network Institute. His research focuses on interdisciplinary topics at the intersection of computer science and computational biology, with expertise in algorithm design, bioinformatics tools, and programming languages. He holds an MSc and a PhD, though specific academic details about his degrees are not provided in the text. His teaching responsibilities include courses such as Introduction to Programming (PYTHON), Object-Oriented and Functional Programming, and Systems Programming Project. These courses reflect his commitment to foundational programming skills and advanced software development practices. Key research interests include developing tools for bioinformatics (e.g., the PRALINE alignment toolkit), functional reactive programming, and visualization systems. His work emphasizes practical, principled approaches to solving complex computational problems. Though no specific grants or awards are listed, his publications span topics like type-safe dynamic typing, modular language implementation, and algorithm optimization, showcasing contributions to both theoretical and applied computer science.
Jörgen Bierau is a Researcher in the Clinical Genetics department at Erasmus University Medical Center, focusing on metabolic disorders and genetics research. His work contributes significantly to understanding and diagnosing rare genetic conditions through advanced biochemical and molecular techniques. His primary research interests include: Metabolic disorders and inborn errors of metabolism Enzyme biochemistry and activity Bile acid metabolism and liver disorders Folate metabolism pathways Diagnostic procedures for genetic disorders RNA splicing mechanisms Structural protein analysis Dr. Bierau's research portfolio demonstrates a strong emphasis on developing and validating diagnostic methodologies for metabolic conditions, particularly using ultra performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. His work spans from extremely rare genetic conditions like KYNU deficiency and 5,10-methenyltetrahydrofolate synthetase deficiency to more common metabolic issues such as polycystic liver disease. The research shows consistent collaboration with national and international colleagues across various medical specialties. His publications reflect a systematic approach to metabolic disorder diagnostics, with recent work focusing on biomarker interaction visualizations to enhance diagnostic capabilities for rare inherited conditions. The research output demonstrates both clinical application and methodological innovation in the field of metabolic genetics.
Thierry van den Bosch is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pathology, Erasmus MC, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research focuses on immunology, oncology, and regenerative medicine with a strong emphasis on translational applications in transplantation and cancer biology. He is affiliated with Erasmus MC, a leading academic medical center in the Netherlands. His research interests include tumor immunology, glial cell biology in neurological disorders, and mechanisms of organ rejection in transplantation. He also explores molecular pathways in cardiovascular diseases and regenerative strategies using organoid models. Recent publications highlight interdisciplinary work in astrocytoma immunotherapy, enteric glial diversity in gastrointestinal disorders, kidney transplant rejection biomarkers, and cardiac fibrosis mechanisms. These studies bridge basic science with clinical applications in oncology, nephrology, and cardiology. No scientific awards are explicitly listed in the provided text. His research activities involve collaborations across multiple departments and institutions, as indicated by his network visualizations.
Patrick Eneche is a Researcher (External PhD Candidate) at the University of Twente’s Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Department of Urban Planning and Geo-Information Management (PGM), and part of the PLUS – People, Land, and Urban Systems group. He holds a B.Sc. in Geography and Urban Planning from Kogi State University (2012) and an M.Sc. in Environmental Management from Nnamdi Azikiwe University (2017). From 2015–2021, he served as an Assistant Lecturer at Kogi State University, teaching and supervising undergraduates while conducting research on urban climatology and environmental management. His research focuses on urban climatology and big geospatial data analytics , with a particular emphasis on landscape character analysis for ecological understanding and stakeholder tool development. His current PhD project, “Geospatial Simulation of Urban Surface Warming in Major Landscape Characters of Nigeria,” aims to create a Green Infrastructure-based Planning Support System (GIPSS) to mitigate urban heat islands (UHIs). This work integrates FAIR data principles, open science practices, and interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance urban sustainability. Patrick’s research outputs include 8 publications and 6 datasets, with notable contributions to land surface temperature modeling, urban heat island mitigation strategies, and landscape character assessment frameworks. His work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals 11 (Sustainable Cities) and 13 (Climate Action). He has collaborated on projects such as the World Bank-funded Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project (NEWMAP). His datasets include interactive dashboards and systematic literature reviews, emphasizing stakeholder engagement and practical applications. While no formal awards are listed, his work demonstrates significant contributions to urban sustainability and geospatial innovation.
Mariëlle I.A. Stoelinga is a Full Professor at Radboud University Nijmegen, affiliated with the Digital Society Institute and the Formal Methods and Tools group. Her work focuses on formal methods, cybersecurity, and safety-critical systems, contributing to UN Sustainable Development Goals related to infrastructure resilience and innovation. Education: Prior academic qualifications include doctoral studies leading to her Prof.dr. title. Her research integrates theoretical foundations of fault and attack trees, model checking, and stochastic modeling, with applications in railways, manufacturing, and smart infrastructure. Research interests include: Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Attack Tree Modeling, Risk Management, Formal Verification of Cyber-Physical Systems, Railway Industry Standards, and Anomaly Detection in Manufacturing. She has a strong focus on practical applications, such as data-driven maintenance strategies and security protocols for critical infrastructure. Recent work emphasizes modular criticality analysis for dynamic systems, fuzzy logic in cybersecurity, and statistical model checking for reliability-centered maintenance. Her publications reflect interdisciplinary collaboration across computer science, engineering, and legal domains. Scientific Awards: Notable recognitions include the Alice & Eve Award (2024), Best Paper Awards at SEFM (2023) and FORTE (2022), and the Concur Test-of-Time Award (2022). These highlight her contributions to formal methods and security research. Advising & Grants: Supervised 12 students and led projects on topics like railway controller testing and additive manufacturing defect analysis. Active in research networks and conferences, she also engages in public outreach through podcasts on data-driven maintenance innovations. Labs/Teams: Part of the Formal Methods and Tools group at Radboud University, collaborating on projects involving digital society challenges, safety-critical systems, and cyber-physical security.
Menno-Jan Kraak is a Full Professor at the University of Twente's Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, leading the Department of Geo-information Processing. He holds a PhD in Cartography from Delft University of Technology and a cum laude Master's from Utrecht University's Faculty of Geographical Sciences. His expertise spans cartography, GIS, geovisualization, and spatio-temporal analytics. Kraak served as President of the International Cartographic Association (2015-2019) and chairs the GIMA program, a collaborative MSc initiative across Dutch universities. His research focuses on innovative cartographic techniques, SDG-related geovisualization, and urban morphology analysis. Notable works include books such as Cartography, Visualization of Geospatial Data and Mapping Time , and editorial roles in journals like International Journal of Cartography . He leads the Spatio-Temporal Analytics, Maps, and Processing (STAMP) research program and contributes to global geospatial initiatives like UN-GGIM. Kraak has been awarded the Kartografieprijs 2020 and is actively involved in advancing cartographic education and ethics through international collaborations. Awards: Kartografieprijs 2020 Leadership Roles: ICA President (2015-2019), Chair of GIMA, Board Member of Netherlands Cartographic Society Key Projects: STAMP Program, Scientific Atlas of the Netherlands, ITC Atlas Development SDG Contributions: Mapping for Sustainable Development Goals, Urban Resilience Visualization
Anton Nijholt is a Professor specializing in non-traditional Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. His work focuses on areas such as affective computing, augmented reality, brain-computer interfaces (BCI), and playable cities. He has held academic positions across universities in Belgium and the Netherlands and has contributed to over 800 research outputs. As Chief Editor of Frontiers in Psychology and Frontiers in Computer Science, he leads the Human-Media Interaction section and serves on editorial boards for Springer's Gaming Media and Social Effects series. Nijholt has supervised approximately fifty Ph.D. students and has been a scientific advisor to Philips Research and a research fellow at institutions like McMaster University (Canada), the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and the Imagineering Institute (Malaysia). His research interests span humor engineering, multisensory human-food interaction, and leveraging AR/VR technologies to enhance urban environments. He has organized major international conferences and workshops in affective computing, entertainment computing, and BCI applications, including recent edited books like Playable Cities: The City as a Digital Playground (2022) and Brain Art: BCI for Artistic Expression (2019). Nijholt emphasizes playful and humorous interactions in smart cities, advocating for technology that improves social-emotional development and urban livability. Nijholt’s recent talks and activities highlight his commitment to exploring AR’s societal impact, ethical implications of extended realities, and BCI applications beyond clinical settings. He collaborates internationally, contributing to the development of frameworks for BCI games and multisensorial augmented reality systems. Despite no explicit mention of awards, his editorial roles and conference leadership reflect his significant contributions to the academic community.
Joyce Karreman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Science at the University of Twente. Her research focuses on digital media, cross-cultural communication, technical communication education, and positive psychology interventions. She has contributed to studies on web design comparisons between Chinese and Western contexts, user support forums, and mental well-being interventions. Expertise: Communication Science, Cross-Cultural Analysis, Digital Health, Technical Writing Her work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly addressing quality education and well-being. She has received the Best Paper Award in 2011 and actively contributes to academic publishing workshops and conference activities. Joyce has supervised 2 graduate research projects and engages in peer-review activities for academic journals. Labs/Teams: Involved in technical communication research groups and interdisciplinary teams focusing on digital health interventions.
Mark van Vuuren is an Associate Professor specializing in Communication Science, focusing on organizational communication, boundary objects, empathy competence, and collaborative strategies. His work intersects social psychology and team dynamics, with a strong emphasis on dialogue facilitation, interorganizational collaboration, and ventriloquial analysis in organizational contexts. He has been recognized with awards for qualitative research and contributions to professional communication education. Key research interests include polarization reduction in political contexts, safe space dialogues, and multimodal boundary work. Notable achievements include developing empathy training programs and frameworks for analyzing visionary team talk. His work bridges academic rigor with professional relevance, addressing challenges in mentorship, safety culture, and innovation in organizational settings. Recipient of ICA Top Four Paper Awards (2020, 2021) and Best Qualitative Paper Award (2019) Active in interorganizational collaboration studies, empathy competence education, and organizational identity research Contributions to strategic organization, team effectiveness, and communication during organizational change Research spans over two decades, with 103 publications and collaborations across multiple countries. Current projects emphasize constructive conversation frameworks and ventriloquial methods in organizational analysis.
