Hi, I am a driven assistant professor at Utrecht University, passionate about multidisciplinary science, continuous learning, and tackling complex challenges. I hold two Master of Science degrees (fundamental mathematics and applied informatics) and a PhD in computer science focused on human-centred explainable AI.
Hear how you can pronounce my Dutch name in English.Research interests
My research is situated in human-computer interaction, which investigates how people interact with technologies. I am specialised in human-centred explainable artificial intelligence, which studies how outcomes of AI models can be explained to different audiences in different contexts; for example, teenagers in an educational context. As a researcher, I am interested in how transparency affects people's trust in AI models, how it supports people's decision-making, whether it improves people's understanding of AI models, etc. I particularly study how data visualisation can help in this endeavour. For example, visual analytics allows domain experts and AI experts to explore model outcomes and steer models with highly interactive visualisations, visualisation-supported justification provides simple insights to AI novices without uncovering technical details, and visualisation-supported control mechanisms allow people to steer AI models and see the control's impact.
Mathematical interests
Mathematics is present in many of my activities. For example, I founded Wiski, a learning platform for high school mathematics, which tries to increase students' motivation with tailored gamification. I use Wiski to study how gamification impacts motivation, how exercises can be recommended based on students' needs, and how recommendations can be explained and steered. In my free time, I also contribute to educational mathematics videos for die Keure, a publisher of course materials widely used in Belgium.
