Netherlands
My research mission is to develop theory and software for creating Intimate Technologies that take into account our human vulnerability in supporting us in our daily lives: intimate computing is computing with vulnerability. I am inspired by the tension between the fundamentally human experience of intimacy and vulnerability, and the world of digital technologies. By engaging with this tension, I hope to realize my vision of a digital society that embraces softness and vulnerability, allowing us to feel wonder and tenderness in our intimate technological experiences. I have a background in computer science and artificial intelligence, specifically multi-agent systems. Over the past 10+ years my work has taken a more and more human-centred focus through development of techniques for socially adaptive support agents that take into account human norms and values. At University of Twente I aim to take this research to the next level by centring my research around the concept of human vulnerability. For my research I was awarded an NWO Vidi personal grant and the Dutch Prize for Research in ICT 2014. I serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (JAAMAS) and was elected member (2012-2018) of the board of the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (IFAAMAS). I was a member of the board of 4TU.NIRICT (2015-2021), which comprises all ICT research of the four universities of technology of the Netherlands. I coordinate the Responsible Hybrid Intelligence research line in the large national 10-year Gravitation research project on Hybrid Intelligence.
Associate Professor Intimate Computing in the Human-Media Interaction (HMI) group at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) at University of Twente. Currently working part-time. It is expected that this will be changed to a full-time position in the coming months.
Guest researcher at the Human Media Interaction group at University of Twente.
Member of the Interactive Intelligence group, headed by prof. dr. Catholijn M. Jonker. === Research === My research has focused on development of the idea of a Socially Adaptive Electronic Partner (SAEP). This is a behaviour support agent that takes into account personal characteristics of its human user and their social context in how it provides support, in particular through modelling and reasoning about norms and values of people. The aim is to give the user agency in how they shape their lives with and through digital technologies. I employ formal methods in combination with user-centered design to guide and inform development of the theory. My work is inspired by research in philosophy of technology that studies and conceptualises human-technology relations. I have been awarded an NWO Vidi personal grant and the Dutch Prize for research in ICT in 2014 for this work. Projects: - COMMIT - Normative Social Applications for location sharing in the family life domain, 2012-2016, 200K - SHINE Project leader (1.3MEUR), multidisciplinary ICT project at TU Delft (2012-2016) on data science for environmental monitoring in urban environments, focusing on social sensing. - NWO Vidi personal grant (800K) on Computational Reasoning for Socially Adaptive Electronic Partners (CoreSAEP), 2014 === Teaching === Various courses on AI and multi-agent systems. Specifically the Multi-Agent Systems course and project (1st year BSc) in which we taught Prolog and the GOAL agent programming language. Moreover, I have initiated and developed the Human-Agent Teamwork MSc seminar, and its successor course Intimate Computing. As member of the curriculum committee (2018) I have initiated the Responsible Computer Science theme in the CS bachelor. I have advocated for a crosscutting approach to integrating aspects of responsibility such as ethics and societal concerns into the curriculum. === Academic leadership === - Board member of 4TU.NIRICT - Board member of IFAAMAS (2012-2018)
See above.
Programming and Software Engineering group (headed by prof. dr. Martin Wirsing) project: SENSORIA (IP in FP6) on service-oriented computing development of service orchestration languages; development of languages for specifying the functionality of a service using description logic (semantic web services) techniques: formal semantics of programming languages; institutions (abstraction of logical system); description logic
Intelligent Systems group (headed by prof. dr. John-Jules Ch. Meyer) supervisors: prof. dr. John-Jules Ch. Meyer, dr. Frank S. de Boer, dr. Mehdi Dastani development of cognitive agent programming languages (in particular goals, plan revision and modules) techniques: formal semantics of programming languages; (dynamic) logic; Maude rewriting language