
I am Senior Researcher in New Technologies at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen (Netherlands). I am involved in research to the application of new technologies, such as virtual and augmented reallity, artificial intelligence, (social) robots and 5G.
My research mainly focuses on how we can develop intelligent, adaptive systems that can support people effectively in a broad range of societal issues, ranging from healthcare to education.
I have over 20 years of research experience in artificial intelligence and cognitive science, taking an interdisciplinary approach that also involves linguistics, psycholinguistics, ethnographic research and developmental psychology. As a result, I am good at analysing complex challenges that occur in society at different angles, and to translate these into technological applications that address these challenges.
I have co-coordinated the European research project L2TOR to investigate how social robots can contribute to foster multilingualism by developing educational games for young children to support them learning a second language. This could, for instance, be Dutch for children with a migration background or English for Dutch-speaking children. Idea is that such robots could be applied at home or at schools to promote children’s development. For more information about this project, consult www.l2tor.eu.
Previously, I was Associate Professor in Social Robotics and Language Development at Tilburg University’s Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, part of the Tilburg School for Humanities and Digital Sciences.