Thesis Supervision

Media Technology, Computer Science and ICT in Business

I supervise students from a variety of programs at Leiden University, including Media Technology, Computer Science and ICT in Business. Most of these theses can be found in theses.liacs.nl, the LIACS Thesis Repository, Leiden University. If affiliations of supervisors are not mentioned, assume Leiden University.

Current projects

  • Manolis Fragkiadakis (Phd). Tools for Sign Language Dictionaries and Corpora. We are creating tools to analyze videos of African sign languages recorded in the wild. Project with Victoria Nyst and Maarten Mous.
  • Dave Stikkolorum (Phd). Studies into Teaching Software Design using UML. Project with Michel Chaudron (Technical University Eindhoven).
  • Nick van der Linden (CS MSc). Rumour Detection on Dutch Twitter. How can rumours, unconfirmed news stories that travel fast, be detected on Dutch Twitter.
  • Chris Congleton (CS MSc). The Political Influence of Dutch Newspapers. We will study to what extent the political bias of various media shapes political news, by looking into political and coverage bias.
  • Thomas Vink (CS MSc). Large scale classification of expense receipts. We will create classification models to classify financial expense transactions into the accounting hierarchies.
  • Kasper de Vries (MT MSc). Dynamic Spaces: Using Redirected-Walking techniques and Impossible Spaces to enable (infinite) Natural Movement within a Virtual Environment based on the available tracking space. How can we move for miles in VR, using natural movements, whilst still staying within the the confines of our tracking space in the living room.
  • Noel Rohan Vasanth (CS MSc). Building a machine learning system that can suggest different ways to sing some lyrics.
  • Yi Zhang (CS ICT in Bus). Providing Insights into Software Usage through Data Mining: Use Case Based User Profiling. Second supervisor, with Guus Ramackers.
  • Joelle Zweekhorst (CS MSc). On the philosophy of power and data activism.

Past projects

PhD

  • Dejan Radosavljevik (2017). Applying data mining in telecommunications. PhD candidate Computer Science (external, with T-Mobile).
  • Hafeez Osman (2015). Interactive scalable condensation of reverse engineered UML class diagrams for software comprehension. PhD Computer Science, co promotor with Michel Chaudron

Media Technology MSc

  • Yannick Nales (2021). Deciding the Fate of the World on a Daily Basis: Comparing Rationality in Decision Making Between RPG Gamers and Non-Gamers. Second supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Laimonas Zakas (2020). Artificial Intelligence implications for VJing. Second supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Alexandra Barancová (2020). Google, What are Algorithms? First supervisor with Christian Katzenbach (HIIG Berlin).
  • Joost Mollen (2020). Bonding with BlockBot: a Field Exploration of the Effect of Common Locus on Human-Robot Bonding. First supervisor, with Kate Darling (MIT Medialab).
  • Gaia Manganello (2020). Consent and the Illusion of Autonomy in EU Data Protection: the Necessary Utopia. First supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Christina Mason (2020). Identity and Uncertainty in Social Influence: An Agent-based Approach. Second supervisor, with Max van Duijn.
  • Evelien Mols (2020). Algorithmic Authority: Motives Behind Relinquishing Decision-making to Artificially Intelligent Systems. First supervisor, with Francien Dechesne.
  • Donna Schreuter (2019). Conformity with Conversational Assistants. First supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Zhirui Hu (2019). Machine Learning Bias Game. First supervisor, with Menno Israel.
  • Stijn van Vilsteren (2019). The Effect of Mediated Plants on a Divergent Thinking Test in Virtual Reality. First supervisor, with Avinash Changa (WeMakeVR).
  • Jasper Schelling. Going Native: Doing data science to understand user behavior. First supervisor, with Ingrid Mulder (TUD).
  • Thiago Elid Della Monica (2018). Modern Social Happiness Index: Mining a Brand New Ranking of Happiness based on Hashtag Data Analysis from Instagram. First supervisor, with Ruut Veenhoven.
  • Anna Chocholi (2018). Pursuing pleasure through fear: Can being scared in the virtual world make you happier in real life? First supervisor, with Roberta Sellaro.
  • Maarten van Hees (2018). Disciples of the Heinous Path: Social Network Structure and Genre Hierarchy in Heavy Metal. With Maarten Lamers.
  • Matei Szabo (2018). Sound and shape: implementing findings from crossmodal research. First supervisor, with Edwin van der Heide.
  • Georgious Bouzias (2018). Uniqueness in Air-Drawing of Symbols. Second supervisor, with Edwin van der Heide.
  • Jamil Young (2016). Effect Caused by Surveyor Visualization Types on Honesty in Surveys and Interviews. With Robin de Lange.
  • Hadiss Yousefi (2016). Guiding through the Dawn: Effect of Visual Stimuli and Aids on Early Onset Young Dementia Patients. First supervisor, with Max van Duijn.
  • Marjolijn Ruyg (2016). Does the Data Doppelganger Reside in The Uncanny Valley? First supervisor, with Gabriele Ferri (HvA).
  • Xander Bos (2016). Computer assisted brainstorming. Which ideation tool is best and what makes it best? Second supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Yasser S. Arenas Rebolledo (2016). MSc Media Technology. A test for a Lovelace machine. First supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Hadiss Yousefi (2016). Guiding through the Dawn: Effect of Visual Stimuli and Aids on Early Onset Young Dementia Patients. First supervisor, with Max van Duijn.
  • Marjolijn Ruyg (2016). Does the Data Doppelganger Reside in The Uncanny Valley? First supervisor, with Gabriele Ferri (HvA).
  • Xander Bos (2016). Computer assisted brainstorming. Which ideation tool is best and what makes it best? Second supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Yasser S. Arenas Rebolledo (2016). MSc Media Technology. A test for a Lovelace machine. First supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Bernd Dudzik (2015). Having a heart-to-heart: Exploring the capacity of heartbeat-feedback to mediate affective information in interpersonal communication. First supervisor, with Joost Broekens.
  • Paul Kasteleyn (2015). Improving depth awareness for divers in free ascend. First supervisor with Olivier van der Post.
  • Jorrit Siebelink (2015). Message framing seen through the eyes of a warrior: Studying the framing effect in relation to virtual persona. First supervisor, with Maurits Kaptein.
  • Sabrina Verhage (2015). Track & Trace: Improving the chance for serendipitous encounters in urban public space using a drawing bot. First supervisor with Chris Kievid.
  • Jules Verdijk (2015). Evolving Affective Abstract Art through Measures Learned from a Corpus of Human-Made Art. First supervisor, with Eelco den Heijer.
  • Livia Teernstra (2015). (A)moral Machine: exploring the creation and application of an automated moral classifier. First supervisor with Fons Verbeek.
  • Jiang Zhenghua (2015). The Effects of Combining Video and Music with Conflicting Emotional Content on Self-reported Emotional Experience. First supervisor, with Maarten Lamers.
  • Sam Verkoelen (2015). Exploring Dimensionality Reduction on Semi-structured Photos — A Closer Look at Exactitudes. Second supervisor with Maarten Lamers.
  • Georgios Lampropoulos (2015). Learning choreography through visual perspective-taking. Second supervisor with Edwin van der Heide,
  • Andrés Pardo Rodríguez (2014). Say Cheese! Taking Pictures in the Rijksmuseum. First supervisor with G.J. Nauta.
  • Guido Huijser (2014). The Relation between Expectations and Appraisal in Music Discovery driven by Music-related Imagery. First supervisor with Maarten Lamers.
  • Arne Boon (2014). Forgetick: Reminding to Forget in Digital Culture. First Supervisor with Bas Haring.
  • Rosen Bogdanov (2013), Human Plant Interaction. First supervisor.
  • Berend Nordeman (2012): "Data Storage on Paper", First supervisor with Maarten Lamers.

Computer Science MSc (to be updated)

  • Yuan Liang (2021). Style Matters: Evaluation on Communication Styles of a Restaurant Robot. Second supervisor, with Joost Broekens.
  • Zhenyo Guo (2021). When can BERT beat SVM? Replication of four text classification papers and fine-tuning RobBERT on Dutch language datasets. Second supervisor with Suzan Verberne.
  • Xueyu Zhao (2021). The effect of robot role and reading comprehension on children's learning outcomes. Second supervisor with Joost Broekens.
  • Michail Tsiaousis (2020). Learning Context for Weakly-Supervised Action Detection Using Graph Convolutional Networks. First supervisor, with Gertjan Burghouts (TNO).
  • Alexander Latenko (2019). Encoding Fair Representations, With Cor Veenman.
  • Palupi Kusuma (2013). Extending traditional telecom churn prediction using social network data. First supervisor, with Frank Takes and Dejan Radosavljevik.
  • Ana Isabel Loureiro (2013). Quantitative evaluation of clustering: an application to the banking sector. Second supervisor, with Carlos Soares (University of Porto)
  • Martin Illiev (2012): "A Method for Automated Prediction of Defect Severity Using Ontologies". MSc Computer Science, second supervisor with Michel Chaudron.
  • Palupi Kusuma (2012). Mobile Data Usage Pattern Mining. Science Based Business internship at T-Mobile, with Dejan Radosavljevik.
  • Menno Israel (2006): "Visual Scene Classification." MSc Cognitive Science, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, company supervisor, with Egon van den Broek.
  • Thijs van Starkenburg (2006): "Improving cancer survivability prognostication software: Experiments with the World Wide Web, Neural Networks and Data mining." MSc Computer science, second supervisor, with Joost Kok and Leiden University Medical Center.
  • Jinshuo Liu (2005): "Shape Analysis & Pattern Recognition of the Pathogen Yeast Crytococcus neoformans Using Image". MSc Computer Science, Second supervisor, with Fons Verbeek.
  • Zan Li & Tiang Feng (2005): "Outdoor Image Orientation on the basis of Neural Networks." Project study Computer Science, second supervisor with Nies Huijsmans
  • Xander van Pelt (2001): A Constrained Data Fusion Approach. MSc. Thesis, Computer Science. company supervisor, with Walter Kosters and Sentient Machine Research.
  • Martijn Ramaekers (2000): M. Ramaekers, Een procesmodel voor Data Fusie. Internship Bedrijfsinformatietechnology University of Twente, company supervisor, with Maurice van Keulen and Sentient Machine Research
  • Irene Matzken (2000): "Evaluation of the Vicar Video Navigator", project study Computer Science, company supervisor, Sentient Machine Resarch.
  • Michel de Ruiter (1999): "Bayesian classification in data mining: theory and practice." MSc. Thesis, BWI, Free University of Amsterdam, company supervisor, with Wojtek Kowlaczy and Sentient Machine Research.
  • Roelien van Waas (1999), "A Secure Electronic Marketplace with Matching facilities: a framework for a SEMM++-application", MSc Cognitive Science and Engineering, company supervisor Sentient Machine Research.
  • Pascal Wijbenga (1998): "Parseren van autoadvertenties", MSc Computer Science Nijmegen University, company supervisor Sentient Machine Research

Computer Science BSc

  • Suzan Al-nassar (2022). The discovery of underlying topics within Coronavirus-related articles. First supervisor, with Jasper Schelling (ACED).
  • David Bouter (2021). Knowing the difference between news and opinion: An explorative research project into classifying news and opinion. First supervisor, with Suzan Verberne.
  • Luit Verschuur (2020). The impact of the naturalness of a robot’s voice on Human-Robot-Interaction. Second supervisor, with Joost Broekens.
  • Kiran Kaur (2020). To what extent can we use Machine Learning to predict the emotion of a person after reading a Dutch news article? First supervisor, with Jasper Schelling (ACED).
  • Pepijn Griffioen (2018). Aligning an industry data model with applications in real estate. Second supervisor, with Walter Kosters and Michiel van Wezel.
  • Martijn Post (2016). Mythbusting data mining myths with Open ML. BSc Computer Science. First supervisor, with Jan van Rijn.

ICT in Business MSc (to be updated)

  • Stijn Kievit (2019). To Churn or Not to Churn: A Comparative Study. Second supervisor, with Niels van Weeren.
  • Bas van Boven. Robust Real-time Action Classification using Single-Shot Convolutional Neural Networks. First supervisor, with Aske Plaat
  • Paris Koutsougeras (2017). Assessment of Master Data Quality in a Multinational Environment. Second supervisor, with Hans Le Fever.
  • Yan Zhang (2016). Humor Recognition Based on Background Knowledge: a Preliminary Study. Second supervisor, with Enrique Larios Vargas.
  • Deepak Soekhoe (2016). A project on knowledge transfer in Deep Learning. First supervisor, with Aske Plaat.
  • Stijn Pielage (2015). Mobile Business Intelligence & Analytics at KLM. Second supervisor with Aske Plaat.
  • Mohammad R. Alaeikhanehshir (2014). Business Intelligence Improvement. Second supervisor with Hans LeFever.
  • Ricardo Blikman (2013). Ranking of Multi Word Terms. Second supervisor, with Joost Kok.
  • Seher Altinay (2013). Data Quality Management: A Solvency II Perspective. First supervisor, with Emiel Caron.
  • Irna Wahyuni (2013). Providing Mobile Money to Unbanked Customers. First supervisor, with Hans LeFever.
  • Jonathan Masey (2012). A conceptual model: Identifying the drivers of pricing elasticity in Electronics. First supervisor, with Michel Chaudron.
  • Adrian Kentsch (2011): "Exploratory Recommendations Using Wikipedia's Linking Structure", second supervisor with Walter Kosters and Frank Takes.
  • Dejan Radosavljevik (2009): "Prepaid Churn Modeling Using Customer Experience Management Key Performance Indicators", second supervisor with Hans Borgman and Kim K. Larsen.
  • Zhen Ni (2007): "Recommendations for an Improved Transactional Forecasting Tool Model in ABN AMRO". First supervisor with Thomas Baeck, Maaike Lycklama a Nijeholt and ABN AMRO.
  • Ning Xu (2007): Explanation Interfaces in Recommender Systems. First supervisor with Walter Kosters.
  • Lei Tao (2006): "Using Genetic Programming to Find Optimal Purchase-Ordering Rules". Second supervisor with Thomas Baeck.
  • Bastiaan Maat (2006): "The Need For Fusing Head & Neck Cancer Data. Can More Data Provide A Better Data Mining Model For Predicting Survivability Of Head & Neck Cancer Patients?". First supervisor, with Walter Kosters and Leiden University Medical Center.
  • Gong Chao (2006): "Simulation and Optimization in Analytical and Collaborative Customer Relationship Management". First supervisor, with Walter Kosters and Chordiant Software.
  • Rui Chen (2006): "Application of Collaborative Filtering Algorithm in Bioinformatics". First supervisor, with Walter Kosters.
  • Zhaochun Sun (2005): "EQPD, A Way to Improve the Accuracy of Mining Fused Data?". First supervisor, with Walter Kosters.
  • Sergio Prieto Ballons (2005): "Crime Data Mining: An Overview and Applications". First supervisor, with Walter Kosters and Sentient Information Systems.
  • Lina Sun (2005): "Making the right offer to the right customer: strategies for real world multi product decisions". First supervisor, with Walter Kosters.
  • Daniel van Hilten en Wouter Volkeri (2005): "What is the impact of cultural differences on multi-site software development?". Second supervisor, with Hans Borgman and an Enterprise Software Vendor.
  • Wei Zhang (2005): "Evolving Technical Trading Rules with a Hybrid Genetic Programming and Evolution Strategies Approach". Second Supervisor, with Thomas Baeck.
  • Ling Jun Meng (2004): "Artificial Immune System for Knowledge Discovery". First supervisor, with Walter Kosters.

Informatics and Economics BSc (Informatica en Economie)

  • Timo Kats (2021). Differentiating Commercial and Editorial Content. First supervisor, with Jasper Schelling (ACED).