{"id":418,"date":"2015-06-29T07:36:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T07:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sverberne.ruhosting.nl\/wordpress\/?page_id=418"},"modified":"2026-03-08T18:44:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T18:44:59","slug":"projects","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/research\/projects\/","title":{"rendered":"People &#038; projects"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>People<\/h2>\n<h4>Current PhD students<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Farrukh Baratov<\/strong>, co-supervised by Niki van Stein in the ICAI lab AI4Oversight: XAI-driven Compliance Detection in Dutch Regulatory Contexts (2025-now).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sabijn Perdijk<\/strong>, co-supervised by Max van Duijn and Gijs Wijnholds: StorytimeLM \u2013 Improving the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Language Models (LMs) with Narrative Data (2025-now, LIACS)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/dylanjoo.github.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jia-Huei (Dylan) Ju<\/a><\/strong>, co-supervised with Andrew Yates in the Hybrid Intelligence consortium (2024-now, UvA)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jujia Zhao<\/strong>, co-supervised by Zhaochun Ren: Integrating search and recommendation with generative models (2024-now, LIACS)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ali Satvati<\/strong>, RUG, co-supervised by Fatih Turkmen: privacy and security of Large Language Models (2023-now, NWA <a href=\"https:\/\/lessen-project.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LESSEN<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>David Lindevelt<\/strong>: Emotion-aware text-to-speech (2023-now, LIACS)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Andras Paraskeva<\/strong>: Parsimonious architectures for Large Language Models, co-supervised with dr. Jan van Rijn (2023-now, LIACS, NWA\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/lessen-project.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LESSEN<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Yumeng Wang<\/strong>: Explainability for conversational agents (2023-now, LIACS, NWA\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/lessen-project.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LESSEN<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>I-Fan Lin<\/strong>: Domain adaptation for conversational agents (2023-now, LIACS, NWA\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/lessen-project.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LESSEN<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mert Yazan<\/strong>: Domain adaptation for conversational agents (2023-now, HvA&amp;LIACS, NWA\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/lessen-project.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LESSEN<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Arian Askari<\/strong>: Improving neural retrieval models in domain-specific contexts (2020-now, LIACS, H2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/dossier-project.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DoSSIER<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--\n \t\n\n<li><strong>Keyan Jin<\/strong>: Text mining for understanding science-technology-linkages (2022-now, LIACS and Science Based business, CSC project)<\/li>\n\n\n--><\/p>\n<p><!--\n \t\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/staffmembers\/hugo-de-vos#tab-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Hugo de Vos<\/strong><\/a>: PolicyDoc: text mining from European Union documents (2017-now, collaboration with FGGA)<\/li>\n\n\n--><\/p>\n<h4>Completed PhD supervisions<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Amin Abolghasemi<\/strong>: Improving neural retrieval models in domain-specific contexts (2021-2025, LIACS, H2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/dossier-project.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DoSSIER<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cwts.nl\/people\/juan-pablo-bascur-cifuentes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Juan Bascur Cifuentes<\/a><\/strong>: Interactive visual browsing and retrieval of scientific literature (2019-2025, collaboration with CWTS)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/research.vu.nl\/en\/persons\/myrthe-reuver\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Myrthe Reuver<\/strong><\/a>, VU, co-supervised with Antske Fokkens on the NWO project <a href=\"http:\/\/ccs.amsterdam\/projects\/rethinking-news-algorithms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rethinking news algorithms<\/a>: nudging users towards diverse news exposure (2020-2025)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sophia Althammer<\/strong>, TU Wien, co-supervised with Allan Hanbury on the project Addressing Data Availability and Document-to-Document Retrieval for Domain-specific Neural Rankers, part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/dossier-project.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">H2020 DoSSIER project<\/a> (2020-2023)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/staffmembers\/gineke-wiggers#tab-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gineke Wiggers<\/a><\/strong>: The Relevance of Impact. Bibliometric-enhanced legal information retrieval (2017-2022, collaboration with Faculty of Law). <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">PhD defence: 8 March 2023<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/annedirkson.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anne Dirkson<\/a><\/strong>: Knowledge Discovery from Patient Forums. Gaining novel medical insights from patient experiences. (2018-2022, collaboration with LUMC).<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> PhD defence: 6 December 2022<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Xue Wang<\/strong>: Multi Modal Representation Learning and Cross-Modal Semantic Matching (2019-2022, LIACS, collaboration with Xi&#8217;an Jiaotong University). <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">PhD defence: 24 June 2022<\/span>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/staffmembers\/alex-brandsen#tab-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Alex Brandsen<\/strong><\/a>: Digging in Documents. Utilizing text mining to access the hidden knowledge in archeological grey literature (2017-2021, collaboration with Faculty of Archaeology). <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">PhD defence: 15 February 2022<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Maya Sappelli<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/repository.ubn.ru.nl\/handle\/2066\/151710\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Knowledge Work in Context: User Centered Knowledge Worker Support<\/a> (2011-2016, Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, Radboud University). <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">PhD defence: 19 February 2016<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Eva D&#8217;hondt<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.narcis.nl\/research\/RecordID\/OND1336713\/Language\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cracking the Patent: Using phrasal features to aid patent classification<\/a> (2009-2014, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University). <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">PhD defence: 17 June 2014<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Postdocs and research assistants<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Martin-Pieter Jansen, external postdoc on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ru.nl\/en\/research\/research-projects\/sentences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>SENTENCES<\/strong><\/a> project at Radboud University, 2024-2025<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ru.nl\/english\/people\/stortenbeker-i\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Inge Stortenbeker<\/strong><\/a>, external postdoc on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ru.nl\/en\/research\/research-projects\/sentences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>SENTENCES<\/strong><\/a> project at Radboud University, 2022-2023<\/li>\n<li><strong>Zahra Abbasiyantaeb<\/strong>, research assistant on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/news\/2021\/12\/searching-for-science-in-patent-texts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EPO patent mining project<\/a>, 2022<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/staffmembers\/alex-brandsen#tab-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Alex Brandsen<\/strong><\/a>: postdoc on the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/research\/research-projects\/archaeology\/exalt-excavating-archaeological-literature\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EXALT<\/a><\/strong> project, 2021-2024<\/li>\n<li><strong>Benjamin van der Burgh<\/strong>, research assistant on health NLP projects, 2017-2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Current projects I am involved in<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Foundation for Industry (FIND)<\/strong>: Large AI models for a resilient high-tech industry. Funded by NWO Perspectief. 5 universities and 14 industrial partners.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/icai.ai\/lab\/ai4oversight-lab-utrecht\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ICAI lab AI4Oversight<\/a><\/strong>. 5 partners:\u00a0Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT), Netherlands Labour Authority, Inspectorate of Education, Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority and TNO.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/4dpicture.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The 4D PICTURE Project<\/a>: <\/strong>Design-based Data-Driven Decision-support Tools: Producing Improved Cancer Outcomes Through User-centred Research, 2023-2027 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/news\/2022\/12\/helping-cancer-patients-with-treatment-choices\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">news article<\/a>). <span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW245752325 BCX0\">F<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW245752325 BCX0\">unded<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW245752325 BCX0\">\u00a0by the European Union under Horizon Europe Work Programme 101057332<\/span><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/research\/research-projects\/science\/liacs-low-resource-chat-based-conversational-intelligence-lessen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LESSEN<\/a>: Low-Resource Chat-based Conversational Intelligence<\/strong>, 2022-2026. Coordinated by the University of Amsterdam. Funded by NWO in the NWA-ORC programme.<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bel-tue.online\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>BEL<\/strong><\/a><strong> (Behaviour, Energy transition, Low income)<\/strong>: &#8220;Tenants\u2019 behavioural responses to residential energy transition: are intended energy savings feasible?&#8221;, 2020-2026. Coordinated by TUe (Ioulia Ossokina). Funded by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nwo.nl\/onderzoek-en-resultaten\/onderzoeksprojecten\/i\/73\/35173.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NWO in the call &#8216;Transities en Gedrag&#8217;<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Past projects<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ru.nl\/en\/research\/research-projects\/sentences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>SENTENCES<\/strong><\/a><strong>: Social mEdia aNalysis To promotE caNCEr Screening<\/strong>, 2020-2024. Coordinated by the University of Amsterdam (Gert-Jan de Bruijn). Funded by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zonmw.nl\/nl\/onderzoek-resultaten\/preventie\/programmas\/programma-detail\/vroege-opsporing\/projecten\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ZonMW in the call &#8216;Vroege Opsporing&#8217;<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/dossier-project.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DoSSIER<\/a>: Domain Specific Systems for Information Extraction and Retrieval<\/strong> (<em><strong>co-applicant<\/strong><\/em>), 2020-2024. Funded by the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 Innovative Training Networks (ITN) programme under the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie actions<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/ccs.amsterdam\/projects\/rethinking-news-algorithms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rethinking news algorithms<\/a>: nudging users towards diverse news exposure<\/strong>, 2020-2024. Coordinated by VU (Antske Fokkens). Funded by NWO in the call &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nwo.nl\/financiering\/onze-financieringsinstrumenten\/sgw\/nwo-open-competitie-voor-digitalisering---sgw\/nwo-open-competitie-voor-digitalisering---sgw.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Open competitie voor digitalisering<\/a>&#8216;.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/research\/research-projects\/archaeology\/exalt-excavating-archaeological-literature\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EXALT<\/a>: Excavating Archaeological Literature<\/strong>, 2021-2024. Coordinated by the Faculty of Archaeology. Funded by NWO in the call &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nwo.nl\/en\/researchprogrammes\/dutch-research-agenda-nwa\/thematic-programming-nwa\/future-directions-dutch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Future directions in Dutch archaeological research (NWA)<\/a>&#8216;<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/social-media-analytics.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RISE_SMA<\/a>: Social Media Analytics for Society and Crisis Communication<\/strong> (<em><strong>co-applicant<\/strong><\/em>), 2019-2023. Funded by the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie grant agreement<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.universiteitleiden.nl\/en\/news\/2021\/12\/searching-for-science-in-patent-texts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Linking patents to scientific publications through in-text reference mining<\/a><\/strong>, 2022-2023. Funded by the European Patent Office (EPO) in the Academic Research Programme<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dsai-project.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Curriculum Development in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence \/ DS&amp;AI<\/a><\/strong>, 2019-2021. Funded by the Erasmus+ programme, Key Action 2: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Digital tools for knowledge extraction for (rare) cancers<\/strong> (<em><strong>co-applicant<\/strong><\/em>), Voucher project funded by the Ministry of Health. With 4 cancer patient communities, in collaboration with TNO.<\/li>\n<li><strong>SmartFile: from keyboard to patient<\/strong>, and the follow-up project, &#8216;Learning from registration&#8217;, (<em><strong>co-applicant<\/strong><\/em>), in collaboration with Hogeschool Codarts, the startup company &#8216;SmartFile&#8217;, 10 sports physiotherapy practices and the Dutch Association for Physical Therapy in Sport Healthcare (Funded by RAAK-SIA)<\/li>\n<li><strong>The reach of junk news on Facebook<\/strong>, in collaboration with <a href=\"http:\/\/nieuwscheckers.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nieuwscheckers<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Empowerment of patients<\/strong> (<em><strong>co-applicant<\/strong><\/em>), pilot project for hypothesis generation based on text mining from patient forums, in collaboration with TNO and LUMC (funded by SIDN)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/discosumo.ruhosting.nl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DISCOSUMO<\/a><\/strong>: Discussion Thread Summarization for Mobile Devices (financed by NWO Creative Industries), with Tilburg University and Sanoma Media BV (2015-2019)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wisdom of the crowds<\/strong>, Patient empowerment in online support communities (casus 3) (<em><strong>co-applicant<\/strong><\/em>), with RIVM and Kanker.nl (2016)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/empoweredpatients.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PFM: Patient forum mining<\/a><\/strong> (<em><strong>co-applicant<\/strong><\/em>), with TNO and Levenmetkanker.nl, financed by SIDN (2016)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.swell-project.net\/results\/swell-valorisation\/query-updates-for-news-monitoring-quinn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">QUINN<\/a><\/strong> (<em><strong>main applicant<\/strong><\/em>): Query Updates for News moNitoring (financed by a COMMIT valorization grant), with TNO and LexisNexis (2015)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.swell-project.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SWELL<\/a><\/strong>: smart reasoning systems for well-being at work and at home (financed by COMMIT), with TNO, Philips, Noldus, University of Twente, Roessingh R&amp;D, Innovalor, and Sense\/Almende (2012-2016)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/rembench.huygens.knaw.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RemBench<\/a><\/strong> (<em><strong>main applicant<\/strong><\/em>): A Digital Workbench for Rembrandt Research (financed by CLARIN-NL), with Huygens ING and RKD (2013-2014)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/remdoc.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rembrandt Documents<\/a><\/strong>: A new digital infrastructure for accessing, analysing, and interpreting original written and printed documents related to the life and art of the world-renowned Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), with Huygens ING and the Rembrandthuis Museum (2012-2013).<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/politicalmashup.nl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PoliticalMashup<\/a><\/strong>: Automatic classification of political texts, with University of Amsterdam (2012-2013)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Route 66 explorative text mining<\/strong>, for De Baak (2012)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/hstrik.ruhosting.nl\/compoli\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ComPoli<\/a><\/strong>: Communicatie en revalidatie digiPoli, with Sint Maartenskliniek (2011-2012)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/metacpan.org\/release\/Lingua-NL-FactoidExtractor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Extracting Factoids from Dutch texts<\/a><\/strong> (<em><strong>main applicant<\/strong><\/em>), financed by a Google European Digital Humanities Award (2011-2012)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/taalunieversum.org\/inhoud\/taal-en-technologie\/taal-en-spraaktechnologie-het-onderwijs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Inventarisatie TST en Onderwijs<\/a><\/strong>, for Nederlandse TaalUnie (2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Feasibility study speech synthesis<\/strong>, for Dedicon (2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.phasar.cs.ru.nl\/TM4IP.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">TM4IP<\/a><\/strong>: Text Mining for Intellectual Property, financed by MatrixWare (2009-2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/sverberne.ruhosting.nl\/wordpress\/research\/my-dissertation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">In Search of the Why<\/a><\/strong>, PhD project (2005-2009)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People Current PhD students Farrukh Baratov, co-supervised by Niki van Stein in the ICAI lab AI4Oversight: XAI-driven Compliance Detection in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":14,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-418","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","post-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":93,"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1663,"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/418\/revisions\/1663"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liacs.leidenuniv.nl\/~verbernes\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}