I am an Associate Professor in Behavioural Data Science at the Department
of Methodology and Statistics at Tilburg University (The
Netherlands) and the Department
of Security and Crime Science at University College London (UK).
Previously I held a position at the UCL Dawes Centre
for Future Crime and obtained my PhD from the Department
of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam.
My research revolves around the interplay and advancement of
psychological research and computational methods to study human
behaviour.
I seek to answer two questions:
- How can computational methods enhance our understanding of the human
mind and behaviour?
- How can psychological research methods inform our understanding of
computational model behaviour?
Substantive research interests include:
- Deception detection and legal psychology
- Human resilience
- Machine behaviour
In our Computational Psychology and
Computational Methods (CPCM) Lab, we collect data in psychological
experiments and develop and apply techniques from natural language
processing, (adversarial) machine learning, and statistical modelling to
better understand human behaviour and psychological processes.
You can find an overview of papers on Google
Scholar and some additional outputs
here. Sometimes media outlets cover our
work.
I am teaching in various programmes.
Most of the course materials are available online.
Common questions
- Is it possible to do a PhD with you? Yes. There are various
routes for PhD projects (e.g., a funded position via university
employment, a joint PhD with another university, self-funding). All
positions that are connected to employment (typically for 4 years) are
publicly advertised. If you are keen to explore options, please have a
look at our lab and my research areas. The PhD project should be aligned
with the overall focus on computational methods to study human behaviour
and psychology.
- How can I join the research lab? The lab members are PhD
students, thesis students or research interns/assistants. If you are
looking for a thesis project, see below. For PhD opportunities, see
above. If you are interested in a research internship, please identify a
topic you are interested in that aligns with the lab’s focus and is
relevant to me and at least one other lab member. Reach out to me via
email then. Research internships should last at least 6 months.
- Do you offer projects for a bachelor theses? Projects for
BSc projects are advertised in the relevant BSc programmes and solely
work through that route.
- Can I do my MSc thesis in your lab? Yes - if your interests
align with the focus of the lab. Please identify a relevant question you
want to work on and contact me. The positions in the lab are limited to
ensure close supervision.
- Would you write a letter of recommendation for me? If you
are student and need a letter of recommendation for a masters programme
(or other programmes), I am happy to write that letter for you if I
know you. The best way for me to write a letter of reference is if
you have spent some time in our lab.