AI to Understand and Connect People

Lode Lauwaert (1981) is professor at the KU Leuven Institute for Philosophy. His interests are situated in current French philosophy, technical philosophy, aggression in all its facets and philosophy of football. He regularly translates philosophy for a wider audience, via readings and media contributions. He recently published the book ‘Wij Robots” (We, Robots) with Lannoo Publishers.

Tinne De Laet is hoogleraar aan de Faculteit Ingenieurswetenschappen van KU Leuven, lid van het Leuven Engineering and Science Education Center (LESEC) en Leuven.AI en hoofd van de Tutorial Services van Ingenieurswetenschappen aan dezelfde universiteit.

Haar onderzoeksinteresses omvatten AI voor educatieve toepassingen, leeranalyses, metacognitie, zelfregulatie en ondersteuning van eerstejaarsstudenten, met een speciale focus op engineering en STEM.

Jan De Bruyne is a research expert at CiTiP KU Leuven on liability law and AI, and active within the Flemish Knowledge Centre for Data & Society. He is the editor of Autonome motorvoertuigen: een multidisciplinair onderzoek naar de maatschappelijke impact” (Vanden Broele, 2020), “Artificiële intelligentie en Maatschappij” (Gompel&Svacina, 2021) and “Artificial intelligence and the law” (Intersentia, 2021).

My name is Sara Garsia and since October 2023 I have been working as a legal research associate at the Centre for IT and IP Law (CiTiP) of the KU Leuven Faculty of Law and Criminology, with a research focus on human-centered AI Governance, in the context of the EU funded project THEMIS 5.0. I’ve recently started my PhD at KU Leuven, where, along with the research of the FLEXIQ project, I will be exploring the data-driven energy transition through the lens of energy justice, focusing on the flexibility of power consumers.

Before joining CiTiP, I developed my background as a lawyer at the intersection of law and technology, private and company law in an Italian law firm, while engaging in several academic activities at LUISS University (lecturing, teaching assistance and tutoring) in the areas of virtual currencies, trust services and company law.

I hold a master’s degree in law cum laude from LUISS University and an advanced LL.M. of IP and ICT Law magna cum laude from KU Leuven. I am admitted to the Italian Bar.

I see law as a means to have an impact on the pressing societal and environmental challenges we are facing, and I’m committed to conduct meaningful and socially impactful legal research!

Abdullah graduated from Bilkent University, Faculty of Law. He is a qualified lawyer in Turkey who is experienced in privacy and data protection law. As a Jean Monnet scholar, Abdullah completed his master's degree at Leiden University, specialising in Law and Digital Technologies.

He is interested in biometrics and data protection, with a particular focus on the effects of new technologies on vulnerable groups. Before joining CiTiP, Abdullah was actively involved in The Netherlands Red Cross, 510 initiative’s works, and he contributed to several projects to ensure the responsible use of data and digital technologies in the humanitarian sector while respecting fundamental human rights and data protection standards.

Abdullah joined CiTiP in October 2021 as a legal researcher, where he is primarily involved in the Horizon 2020 project iMars and The Research Council of Norway-funded SALT Project.

Research interests: regulation of AI, GDPR, fundamental rights impact assessments, cyber security, biometrics, synthetic data, emotion recognition, eID legal framework

Isabela is a legal researcher at the Centre for IT & IP Law – CiTiP – imec - KU Leuven, where she works on data governance projects, currently with focus on ENACT and CEDAR. In parallel, she is working on her PhD over the intersection between open data initiatives and the right to data protection, aiming to understand how the interconnection of these systems can guarantee the right to memory. She obtained a Master’s degree in Economic and Regulatory Law from the University of Brasília (UnB, Brazil) in 2022, presenting a thesis on “The processing of personal data for marketing purposes”, which was published as a book by Ed. Fórum. She also holds a LL.B degree in Law from UnB (2019), having written her thesis on “The definition of the legitimate interest according to the GDPR and the Brazilian Data Protection Law (LGPD)”. As a recipient of the SANTANDER grant, she studied at the University of Granada (Spain) in 2016-2017.

Prior to joining CiTiP, Isabela worked as a lawyer and consultant at a prestigious Brazilian law firm and as a project manager at the CEDIS-IDP (2020-2022), where she contributed to projects such as “Effective LGPD” and “LGPD in the Courts”. She has also worked as head of Data Governance and Digital Economy” at LAPIN and as an assistant in the Brazilian Administrative Council of Economic Defense (CADE).

Isabela is interested in the following research topics:

• Ethical and legal impacts of new technologies
• Data Protection
• Regulation of new technologies
• Cybersecurity
• Data governance
• Government access to personal data
• Impact Assessments

Dr. Rani Van Schoors is postdoctoraal onderzoeker binnen de onderzoeksgroep itec – een imec-onderzoeksgroep aan de KU Leuven. Ze heeft een PhD in Onderwijstechnologie, met een focus op digitaal gepersonaliseerd leren. Breder onderzoekt ze de implementatie van nieuwe technologieën in het onderwijs en training context, waaronder AI en XR. Als docent binnen de Master of Artificial Intelligence in Business and Industry aan de KU Leuven onderzoekt ze de impact van AI in het onderwijs.

Thomas Winters is a post-doctoral researcher working on creative artificial intelligence under supervision of prof. dr. Luc De Raedt at the DTAI research group of the KU Leuven computer science department and the Leuven.AI institute.

Leen Sevens is educatief technoloog aan de KU Leuven. Ze heeft een achtergrond als onderzoeker in Computerlinguïstiek en ontwikkelde een vertaalsysteem voor het omzetten van tekst naar pictogrammen (en omgekeerd) voor mensen met een verstandelijke beperking. Als onderwijsinnovator aan KU Leuven verdiept ze zich onder meer in de opportuniteiten en risico's van GenAI voor het hoger onderwijs en organiseert ze praktische workshops voor docenten en ondersteuners.

Expertise: Taaltechnologie, AI en Onderwijs, Humane Wetenschappen

Jens Meijen is a PhD researcher at KU Leuven and a Fulbright Fellow at Stanford University working on AI regulation. He is also a team leader at the Center for AI and Digital Policy, a Global Policy Fellow at the Institute for Technology & Society in Rio de Janeiro, and an AI consultant.

Expertise: AI ethics and responsible AI; AI startups and venture capital; AI regulation (AI Act); AI and democracy

I am a Researcher on Algorithms and Cloud at the Netherlands Court of Audit. In this role, I am examining the use of AI, algorithms and cloud services deployed by the Dutch government. I assess and evaluate whether these are deployed in a responsible manner.

I finished my PhD at the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), in Estonia. My thesis focuses on the public value created using Artificial Intelligence technologies within public services and requirements and factors that contribute thereof.

In combination with my PhD, I was working as an External Expert for the AI Watch team of the European Commission, contributing to the research activities on the use of AI within public services.

I am also a co-editor of the Research Handbook on Artificial Intelligence for Public Management published by Edward Elgar Publishing.

Before,I was the Program Director for AI at Digital Nation. I led the AI strategy activities and advised on AI capacity building through involvement in several activities regarding the AI4GOV Master, the Dutch government, UNESCO and the European Commission.

Dr. David Geerts is a freelance proposal manager, human-centered designer and trainer. He was Senior Research Manager of the KU Leuven Digital Society Institute (DigiSoc) in Belgium for three years, for which he organized and managed various events, facilitated internal and external collaborations, supported the submission of project proposals, and created national and international visibility. Before, he managed the Meaningful Interactions Lab (Mintlab) at KU Leuven for 17 years, while specializing in human-centered design and user experience of new technologies, including social media and interactive TV. David has published in various international conferences and journals and regularly gives presentations, tutorials and guest lectures on topics related to Human-Computer Interaction. In 2007, he co-founded u-sentric, an SME that provides CX and UX consultancy services.

I am Christos Chatzichristos, currently a post-doctoral researcher at KU Leuven. My educational background revolves around electrical and computer engineering, with a specialization in Biomedical Applications and an emphasis on signal processing during both my Master's and Ph.D. studies. During my doctoral journey, I witnessed the profound impact of neural networks on the field of signal processing, marking the inception of my foray into the realm of AI applications. I hold a strong belief in fostering broad interdisciplinary collaborations, as I believe that research today cannot thrive in isolation within a single domain. Artificial intelligence stands as a potent tool to expedite healthcare research. However, to truly harness its potential, we must bridge the gap by facilitating healthcare professionals' understanding of fundamental AI concepts, just as they aid biomedical engineers in unraveling the mysteries of the human body. So, here's to using AI to accelerate healthcare research while ensuring that we all speak the same language – whether it's the language of algorithms or the language of anatomy!

Bas Vercruysse is a historian and took a course in applied AI after his studies. At the moment, he is working as a PhD student at the Ghent Centre for Digital Humanities where he is trying to insert computer vision and large language models into the fascinating but sometimes somewhat archaic world of historians. He focuses on making visual and textual historical sources accessible, with applications ranging from detecting humour comics in old journals to supporting research on climate data.

Miryam de Lhoneux is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at KU Leuven in Belgium, researching and teaching Natural Language Processing. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of LAGoM NLP.

Previously, she was a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and at KU Leuven. She holds a PhD in Computational Linguistics from Uppsala University, an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, UK, and a BA and MA in languages and literature from UCLouvain, Belgium

Margherita Fantoli is Assistant Professor (tenure track) of Digital Humanities at the Faculty of Arts of KU Leuven. She teaches in the Advanced Master of Digital Humanities (Linked Data Scholarship and Introduction to Digital Humanities) and works on the application of computational methodologies to Latin and to historical data.

Tess Dejaeghere is a PhD student affiliated with the Computational Literary Studies infrastructure (CLS infra) project and the Ghent Center for Digital Humanities (GhentCDH) at Ghent University.

She has a background in interpreting (VUB), Digital Humanities (KULeuven), and Digital Text Analysis (UA). Her research focuses on the application and evaluation of NLP techniques for literary-historical texts and fostering AI literacy and an AI-critical perspective in (digital) humanities.

Yoeri Uyttenaele is a doctoral researcher at ESAT, STADIUS in KU Leuven. His research lies on the interface of Musicology and Artificial Intelligence, specifically Computer Vision and NLP.

As such, his work is closely intertwined with the research of The Alamire Foundation, an international study center with the goal of stimulating, coordinating and conducting academic and practical research on music and the music scene of the Low Countries, from the Middle Ages until 1800. In his research, Uyttendaele develops a range of AI techniques, such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) methods for document digitization, Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques for music analysis and transcription, and generative AI for image restoration. By using AI to translate and analyse the difficult notation and restore the degraded music documents, we aspire to lower the threshold for musicologists and musicians to discover and perform this wonderful part of our cultural heritage.

Gonzalo Muradás Odriozola is a PhD researcher at KU Leuven working at the intersection of psychology and artificial intelligence. With a background in computer science, he explores how computational models can help us understand human aesthetic preferences in visual images.

His research focuses on mid-level visual features—such as symmetry, balance, and perceptual grouping—and how these influence aesthetic judgments. By combining machine learning techniques with insights from experimental psychology, Gonzalo aims to bridge human perception and artificial systems in the study of visual aesthetics.