I am full professor of Socially-Intelligent AI at the University of Amsterdam. I lead the Socially Intelligent Artificial Systems (SIAS) group at the  Informatics Institute. I am  Founder and Scientific Director of the Civic AI Lab. And I am program director Master Information Studies, and Scientific Director of Civic-AI Lab. 

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I received my M.Sc. degree from the University of Amsterdam, where I studied Information Systems from September 1992 until November 1996. In 1996 I stayed  with the Image Processing and Analysis Group (IPAG) at Yale University where I did graduation work on "A Visual Editor for Automated Feature Computation in Medical Image Database Management Systems".

 

I received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Amsterdam, where I did research in the Intelligent Sensory Information Systems (ISIS) group from 1996 to  2001. In this period I worked on the project "Intelligent Interactive Segmentation of Medical Volume Images" (financially supported by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs), which took place in cooperation with the Image Science Institute (Utrecht University) and Philips Medical Systems (EasyVision Advanced Development) within the framework of the Innovation Oriented Research program. Part of the research was conducted at the Image Processing and Analysis Group (IPAG) at Yale University. The research, supervised by prof. dr. ir. A. W. M. Smeulders, resulted in 2002 in the thesis titled "Strings and Necklaces: On Learning and Browsing Medical Image Segmentations".

 

From 2002 until 2005 I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Biomedical Imaging Group Rotterdam (BIGR) at the Erasmus MC, University Medical Center. My research focused on biomedical image analysis, image retrieval and image mining with goal was to assist the epidemiologist and radiologist in the identification of abnomalrities in MRI brain scans. While at the Erasmus MC my  research interest gradually shifted from medical imaging to cognitive vision in neuropsychology.  From trying to understand and computationally model the perception and decision making processes of a specialized brain such as that of a radiologist, to perception and decision making processes of general brains: do everyday people also (unconscoulsy) exploit visual regularities in their  natural environment?

 

In 2005, I returned to the University of Amsterdam with the goal to bridge research between computer vision and human vision. I worked as an assistant professor in two different research groups at two different faculties: the Intelligent Sensory Information Systems Group (prof. dr. ir. A. W. M. Smeulders) and the Cognitive Neuroscience Group Amsterdam (prof. dr. V. Lamme). In 2011, I decided to completely move to the Cognitive Neuroscience Group Amsterdam and make yet another gradual shift in research interest: from understanding and computationaly modeling visual perception and decision making processes to understanding and computationaly modeling cognitive processes in general, and in particiular bias/stereotyping as a mechanism to cope with the complex (social) environment we live in.

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Currently, my research focuses on harnessing AI for the betterment of everyday life and society, ensuring it is done fairly and inclusively. In addition to my academic pursuits, I am actively engaged in numerous committees and boards, such as the State Commission against Discrimination and Racism and the Supervisory Board of the Nemo Science Museum.

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