πŸ‘¨πŸ» About

I’m an Assistant Professor in Information Retrieval and Natural Language Processing at ILLC, University of Amsterdam, and Lab Manager of the AI for Open Government ICAI Lab. I worked in industry before coming back to academia, most recently on inclusive algorithms and responsible AI in hiring and news recommendation. I acquired my PhD in 2017 at the University of Amsterdam, under supervision of Maarten de Rijke on semantic search for e-discovery.

I engage in various extra-curricular activities: I am board treasurer of SETUP, a public engagement fellow at Amsterdam AI, and a member of the Commissie Persoonsgegevens Amsterdam. I am a publicity co-chair of ECIR 2026, I co-organized the RecSys in HR Workshop series from 2020-2024, served as local outreach chair at ACM RecSys 2021, and publicity chair of ECIR 2014. I am a frequent speaker and panelist on topics involving responsible AI, recommender systems, and HR.

Academic background

I acquired my PhD in Information Retrieval from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in 2017, working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Maarten de Rijke at the IRLab. My research focused on semantic search and computational methods for automated understanding of large-scale textual digital traces. I defended my thesis, “Entities of Interest β€” Discovery in Digital Traces,” in June 2017. In 2015, I interned at Microsoft Research in Redmond, supervised by Paul Bennett, Ryen White, and Eric Horvitz, where I analyzed Microsoft’s Cortana user-interaction logs, resulting in a best paper at UMAP 2016 and a patent. In 2014, I visited Prof. Dr. Doug Oard’s E-Discovery Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Algorithms aren’t evil

In my opinion the voice of computer scientists is missing in the highly polarized (public) debate around AI, which is largely dominated by non-technical people. For that reason, I think we wrongly fear filter bubbles, think personalized advertising will usher in the the end of democracy, believe tracking cookies are our worst enemies, and feel that companies should not be allowed to collect any of our data at all. I try to bring another perspective, and in that context I try to speak and write to get my point across to a broader audience. I have written and spoken in mainstream media for the general publicβ€”which I try to continue to do. Some things I am particularly proud of:

  1. An article on why it’s a good thing algorithms aren’t neutral, written with Maarten de Rijke, published in NRC Handelsblad and nrc.next.
  2. An appearance on TV in “Denktank,” a program for youngsters, where I nuance the worries around algorithms and algorithmic personalization.
  3. A layman’s talk on how and where algorithms affect us in daily life for a debate night themed “The power of algorithms” at De Balie in Amsterdam.
  4. A keynote at the VOGIN-IP Lezing titled “The filter bubble doesn’t exist,” where I explain algorithmic personalization and summarize a few academic works that suggest the filter bubble is not an algorithmic problem.
  5. Consulting lawyer Inez Weski in making sense of the digital forensics process that played a role in a large-scale lawsuit involving the acquisition of a huge database of encrypted communication data (Ennetcom).

Media Background

I have a background in Humanities, and obtained my Media and Culture (media studies) Bachelor of Arts at the University of Amsterdam in 2008. After a brief period of work and travel, in 2009 I started my MSc Media Technology at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Sciences, at Leiden Universiteit. In 2012, I graduated with a project involving semantic annotation and network visualization.

I used to work in the media. I’ve worked for Dutch broadcasting company NTR (formerly Teleac, former-formerly Teleac/NOT) for several years as an editor for radio and online science programs. Here I gained experience in a wide array of editorial tasks such as writing (news) items, preparing interviews, but also with several aspects of audiovisual media production, like (video) editing, animating, and studio recording of a daily science news program.

Science communication

During my PhD I leveraged this experience by writing short articles about our group’s publications for the general public, with the communications department of the University of Amsterdam. I co-authored and published several articles, some of which gained (inter)national coverage on tech sites, newspapers and magazines. See for example:

  1. New method supplements Wikipedia with Twitter topics (also appeared on Tweakers.net, DeMorgen.be, Emerce, z24.nl)
  2. Improved predictions of queries by search engines
  3. New method helps Google Translate translate better (also appeared in NewScientist)

What else?

I further possess basic skills in graphic- and web-design, having built several websites for several people, creating thesis covers for friends, and logos for projects. I like hacking away at my car. I like photography, which you can witness on Instagram (@instagraus). I also like yoga and running. And like the rest of the world I like to travel, read books, watch films, play videogames, and listen to music.