Dr. Judith Kamalski

Managing Director

Judith is BISS’ Managing Director. In everything she does, Judith aims to advance science. She truly believes in the power of science, and in how important that can be for us and our children.

Judith combines over a decade of experience in a commercial setting with solid knowledge of academia. In the corporate world, she has for instance led a department of analytical product managers and consultants, and she worked in Business Development. In academia, she obtained her PhD in 2007 at Utrecht University.

Many years later, she rejoined the scientific world when she was appointed at Maastricht University as Director Academic Affairs in 2018, where she worked among other things on a strategy for connecting the Brightlands campuses and on the Artificial Intelligence strategy for Maastricht University. This experience left her wanting more of this exciting field and now that she is leading BISS. She enjoys working on the socially responsible application of digital technology and to have a real impact on the world that surrounds her.

Keywords:

• leadership
• impact
• science
• application
• socially responsible

Prof. Lisa Brüggen

Professor of Financial Services & director of Netspar

Elisabeth (Lisa) Brüggen is Full Professor of Financial Services at Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics (SBE).

She has published multiple studies on financial well-being and pension communications in, among others, the Journal of Marketing.

The mission of her research is to generate evidence-based insights to accelerate people’s financial planning. She is especially interested in the role of digitalization in smart decision making. For example, can smart apps and smart digital choice architectures nudge consumers into selecting the most suitable option? How do human-machine interactions influence customer experiences and well-being? Can financial well-being improve through smart apps and data visualization? Can personalized pension communication increase member engagement?

Prof. André Dekker

Professor of Clinical Data Science

Andre Dekker is professor of Clinical Data Science at Maastricht University, board-certified medical physicist at MAASTRO Clinic and head of Academic IT at Maastricht University Medical Center.

His research focuses on three main themes: building global FAIR data sharing infrastructures, using artificial intelligence to learn outcome prediction models from this data and applying outcome prediction models to improve lives of patients.

Andre will focus on translational research and education in digital health.

Prof. Gijs van Dijck

Professor of Private Law

Gijs van Dijck is a legal scholar who specializes in tort law, insolvency law, and contract law. He is a Professor of Private Law at Maastricht University, Faculty of Law (FL).

Gijs has published in top journals including the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies and the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. He has been a speaker at various conferences, including ones at Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Duke and Cornell. Gijs was a visiting scholar at Stanford University in 2011. In addition to his BISS Institute appointment, he is Director of M-EPLI, and researcher at the Maastricht Law and Tech Lab.

Gijs uses legal research methods and data sciences methods, network analysis in particular, to analyze legal issues. His mission is to provide access to complex legal information by applying data sciences methods.

Dr. Darian Meacham

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Darian Meacham is a philosopher with particular interests and expertise in the societal impacts of emerging technologies. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Maastricht University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS).

Darian has worked as the Director for Responsible Research and innovation at BrisSynBio (a synthetic biology research centre at the University of Bristol, UK) since 2014, and has previously collaborated with the Bristol Robotics Laboratory to explore ethical issues concerning the use of social and industrial robotics.

At BISS, Darian will be working with data scientists, industry, citizens, and other stakeholders to understand the impact of data-driven technologies in the workplace and across society more broadly. The aim is to ensure the responsible implementation of these technologies across the board, making sure that the benefits and risks that they bring are distributed in a fair and equitable manner.

Prof. Rudolf Müller

Professor of Quantitative Infonomics

Rudolf Müller is a Professor of Quantitative Infonomics at Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics. His research centers on the design of systems that use data and algorithms to orchestrate economic interaction.

Over the past, his research has touched all aspects of applying algorithms, reaching from computational efficiency, over methods of sharing on the Internet (cloud computing), to understanding and guiding participants’ behavior in algorithmically supported market mechanisms, like auctions. He has published in major outlets in mathematical optimization like Mathematical Programming, economics and management, like Econometrica, and Management Science, and computer science and information systems, like IEEE Internet Computing and Decision Support Systems.

His work at BISS focuses on the architecture of smart service systems, taking a multi-disciplinary perspective to align computational performance, user satisfaction and economic performance.

Dr. Robert Gianni

Researcher

Robert is a researcher at BISS. His aim is ensure that the different phases of technology development are ethically and democratically sound. In addition, he wants to enhance democratic practices within scientific research and innovation. Key research questions are ‘How can we implement a legitimate and efficient process of co-construction when designing new technologies?’ and ‘How can ethics and responsibility play a positive role enabling a meaningful interconnection between different spheres of society?’, but also ‘How can we radicalize democracy through its extension in domains that are not limited to the one of political democracy?’.

He works with stakeholders, end-users and other scientists to understand the different roles of technology on democratic practices and how they can be mutually beneficial.

Keywords:

• research
• ethics
• democracy
• co-construction

Prof. Max Louwerse

Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence

Max Louwerse, PhD., is a cognitive psychologist, artificial intelligence researcher and linguist. He is Professor by Special Appointment at Maastricht University (BISS) and Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. Before moving to the Netherlands, he filled academic appointments in the United Kingdom and the United States, where he worked for 18 years.

Louwerse has published his interdisciplinary research in over 160 articles in academic journals in psychology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. His research has been awarded with almost 45 million dollars in research funding. Louwerse has worked on several initiatives to bring research to society, the general public and industry, holds two patents, and is author of the popular science book Keeping Those Words in Mind: How Language Creates Meaning.

Keywords:

• cognitive psychology
• artificial intelligence
• linguistics

Dr. Yenisel Plasencia-Calaña

Researcher

Yenisel is a researcher at BISS. She has a strong affinity with research and projects having a social impact. Research questions that Yenisel is working on are ‘How to achieve transparency and interpretability for the different machine learning approaches and models?’ and ‘How can we benefit from freely available and reusable data to perform data science analysis that provide insights with direct impact to social good?’. Other research questions that have Yenisel’s attention are ‘How to develop machine learning and data science approaches for small data?’ and ‘How to create computationally efficient machine learning?’.

She delivers research results by making use of the current artificial intelligence (AI) applications, machine learning, and data science analysis. Sometimes additional tools are developed to do a deeper analysis and make results more transparent and interpretable for users.

Keywords:

• research
• data science
• machine learning
• artificial intelligence

Dr. Johan van Soest

Senior Researcher

Johan is a senior researcher at BISS. His background is in medical informatics and is working on societally acceptable machine learning. This work can be applied within and outside of the healthcare domain. Specifically, he is working on tools to make data more FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable), privacy-preserving machine learning over multiple data sources, and FAIR descriptions of AI models. All from the practical perspective, taking into consideration the stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities.

Keywords:

• FAIR data
• FAIR AI models
• federated learning
• privacy-preserving machine learning

Shashank Chakravarthy

Research Engineer

Shashank is research engineer at BISS. He focuses on engineering research problems with data engineering, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning.

Shashank’s prior experience is multi-faceted, working as a data engineer and pre-sales consultant prior to obtaining a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence.

Keywords:

• data engineering
• natural language processing
• machine learning
• artificial intelligence

Dr. Minou van der Werf

Senior Researcher and Project Manager

Minou is senior researcher and project manager at BISS. She specializes in human behavior and behavioral change, especially in the financial domain. In all the work she does, she wants to use her knowledge on human behavior to have a positive impact on society.

Prior to BISS, Minou worked at Nibud as an expert in financial behavior for several years. While working at Nibud, she obtained her PhD in social psychology at Leiden University, investigating how behavioral insights can be used to improve sound financial decision-making. After her PhD, she set-up and managed the Knowledge Centre Psychology and Economic Behavior, which aims to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge on human behavior and professionals or policy-makers in the field. At BISS, she will continue on the path of applying scientific insights for practical solutions.

Keywords:

• research
• project management
• financial behavior
• behavioral change

Chris van der Lans

Frontend Developer

Chris is a front-end developer at BISS. He specializes in user experience, information architecture, and human-centric design.

Chris has a masters degree in bio-informatics. He has previously worked as a Java developer, full-stack webdeveloper at a marketing company in the center of Maastricht, and as a bio-informatician at MUMC+.

Keywords:

• front-end development
• user experience (UX)
• information architecture
• human-centric design

Vivienne Curvers

Senior Project Manager

Vivienne is senior project manager at BISS. Vivienne has a track record in applying design thinking to accelerate innovation. Within BISS Vivienne uses these skills and her pragmatic and enthusiastic approach to drive projects forward.

As an experienced entrepreneur, consultant and program manager, Vivienne has the ability to think creatively and out-of-the-box in a changing environment. With decisiveness and a positive outlook she is able to involve colleagues and stakeholders and translate strategy into operation.

Keywords:

• project management
• business development
• design thinking

Carlos Aguilera

Data Engineer

Carlos Eduardo Aguilera Medina is a Data Engineer at BISS. He graduated with a Computer Science Degree and specializes in Software Development and Software Engineering.

Prior to BISS he has worked as a full-stack developer in different companies that focus on providing services that handle the processing of georeferenced, audiovisuals and text-based data.

Keywords:

• data engineering
• frontend development
• backend development

Sander van Essel

Full-stack Developer

Sander van Essel is a Data Engineer at BISS. He has a bachelor in Software Development with a special interest in Web Development and working with data.

Prior to BISS and his college he taught himself to develop software in several languages and work with data in several ways.

The field he primarily operates in is Web Development and almost everything that relates to it.

Keywords:

• frontend development
• backend development
• data engineering