Published 10 August 2011
Dr. Ramon Puras is AUC's Director of Education and Head of Studies (Sciences). He also co-teaches Introduction to Biology at AUC.
Ramon Puras graduated (Diplom) in Chemistry/Biochemistry at the Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). He received his PhD on ‘HIV integrase: a target for drug discovery' (AIDS research) from the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, and followed postdoctoral studies at the VU University Amsterdam. He has been a lecturer at Utrecht University and University College Utrecht (UCU) and he was involved in the development of the Prestige Master programme in Biomolecular Sciences. Before joining AUC in 2008, he was responsible for the international master’s programme in Oncology at VU University Medical Center.
Direct phone number: +31 (0)20 525 8787
- Louis Akkermans teaches the course Hormones and Homeostasis at AUC. He was appointed emeritus Professor of Gastrointestinal Physiology at the Utrecht University. Prior to this, he served as the Head of Experimental Surgery and Co-director of the Gastro-intestinal Motility Laboratory at the University Medical Centre Utrecht.
He graduated in Biology and obtained his PhD at Utrecht University where he specialized in Gastrointestinal Physiology and Pharmacology. He also served as a consultant in the pharmaceutical industry for many years. His current research interests include functional bowel diseases, pancreatitis, gut-microbiota interaction, and investigations into the mode of action of probiotics. During the last 10 years, he was also a teacher and examiner of medical undergraduate courses in metabolism, endocrinology, gastrointestinal diseases and a research oriented elective course in gastric mucosal barrier homeostasis and immunity.
- Matthias Bickelhaupt teaches Introduction to Chemistry at AUC. He is also Professor of Theoretical Organic Chemistry and Biocatalysis in the Department of Theoretical Chemistry at VU University.
Matthias Bickelhaupt graduated in Chemistry at VU University Amsterdam and received his PhD on a combined mass spectrometric and theoretical investigation on base-induced elimination reactions at the University of Amsterdam. He has been a postdoctoral associated at the Universities of Erlangen (Germany), Calgary (Canada) and Cornell (USA). In 1997, he joined the University of Marburg (Germany) as Assistant Professor, got tenure in 1999, became Associate Professor in 2003 and Full Professor in 2009 at VU University. In 2002, he received the prestigious VICI award of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for the development of theories and models that enable one to predict and steer chemical reactions on the basis of the electronic structure of molecular systems.
For more information about Matthias Bickelhaupt, please see link below.
- Forrest Bradbury teaches nanoscience and mechanics in the physics track and gives courses and remedial lessons in calculus and statistics.
After a BSc in physics and a BSEng in mechanical engineering from Ohio University, he completed a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton University. As an experimental scientist, he has studied the possibility of using semiconductor material systems for controlling quantum information.
Additionally, he has been involved in volunteer projects through Engineers Without Borders USA and the United Nations Development Programme, serving as a mentor for a solar energy project in Peru and a consultant in renewable energy design for a Cameroonian organization, respectively.
Direct phone number: +31 (0)20 525 8792
- Colleen Doak teaches Introduction to Public Health, Nutrition and Health and Epidemiology at AUC. She is also Assistant Professor at the VU University Amsterdam and has been working at the Department of Health Sciences, Nutrition and Health since 2003.
Colleen Doak obtained her BA and her MA in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. She completed her PhD in Nutrition at the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill. Her focal area of research relates to improving nutrition, including under-nutrition as well as overweight and obesity. Her current ongoing research collaborations are mainly in South Africa and Guatemala but also include global, multi-country comparisons.
- Michiel van Drunen teaches Introduction to Environmental Sciences and the theme course Introduction to Energy, Climate and Sustainability at AUC. He studied Environmental Chemistry at Leiden University between 1986 and 1990 and received his PhD at the Delft University of Technology.
He has worked at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) of the VU University Amsterdam since 1996. His research projects deal with making environmental information transparent for decision makers, such as the development of a decision support system for soil remediation, sustainability indicators for Amazonia, socio-economic scenarios for climate assessments, measuring the environmental performance of industries, financing adaptation in developing countries and many others.
In addition, he has developed and taught several environment-related courses at the VU University.
For more information about Michiel van Drunen, please see link below.
- Dr. Marjan M. van Duist teaches Cancer Biology and Treatment at AUC. She is the coordinator of the Research Master of Sciences Programme in Oncology at the VUmc.
For her undergraduate internship in molecular biology she decided to go to Italy. After graduation she obtained a MSc in Bioinformatics and a PhD in Human Genetics at the Università degli studi di Torino. She has been working for many years at the department of Clinical and Biological Sciences at the San Luigi Hospital, where she studied the genetics of intestinal inflammation and many cancer types such as; prostate, lung, and colorectal. During her PhD she identified and studied the functional effect of several new mutations in the CARD15 gene causing Blau syndrome.
As a Post-doc she returned to the Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment at the department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology, where she once started as a student. Until 2010 she has been working mainly on Cancer Stem Cells of osteosarcoma and neuro- and glioblastoma and the effect of oncogenes such as c-MET in tumour onset and progression.
Along the years she has been supervising many students from bachelor to PhD level and lectured on oncology, human genetics, molecular biology, bioinformatics and forensic sciences.
- Vincent Everts teaches Molecular Cell Biology and Cell Biology and Physiology Lab at AUC.
He studied Biology in Utrecht and did his PhD research at the Academic Medical Centre of the University of Amsterdam. His research focused/focuses on bone and connective tissue remodelling. Vincent Everts became full professor Oral Cell Biology of the Academic Centre of Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA) in 2003. He has taught Cell Biology to medical students and students that studied medical informatics since 1981. In 2003, he started teaching Cell Biology to dental students and master students of movement sciences.
- Jan-Mark Geusebroek teaches Intelligent Systems at AUC. He is also Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Amsterdam.
After a degree in Electrical Engineering, he received his PhD with a study on colour and geometrical information processing for computer vision from the University of Amsterdam in 2000. He was visiting scientist in Oxford and at Johnson & Johnson's fundamental research labs. His research interests are in cognitive vision systems and biologically motivated vision, as well as machine learning for visual perception. He has developed and taught several computer vision and sensory information processing related courses at the University of Amsterdam.
For more information about Jan-Mark Geusebroek, please see link below.
- Ronald Griessen teaches a variety of physics courses at AUC: Condensed Matter Physics, the Physics Lab, the theme course Introduction to Energy, Climate and Sustainability (at 100 and 300 level). He studied Physics at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich (CH). After having completed his PhD in 1974 at the same university on quantum oscillatory effects in metals he went to the McLennan Laboratory of the University of Toronto. In 1976 he joined the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam where he is now full Professor and Head of the Condensed Matter Physics department.
His research activities have shifted gradually from high temperature superconductivity to switchable mirrors and is presently focused on energy storage in hydrides, optic fiber hydrogen sensors and smart solar collectors.
Since 2005 he is also Chairman of the Board of Governors of FOM (Fundamental Research of Matter) and Chairman of the Physics Division of NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). He received the ETH medal in 1969, the Physica Prize in 2001 and the Onderwijsprijs of the Vrije Universiteit in 2007.
- Bert van Hattum teaches Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology at AUC and is working as a senior scientist at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) of VU University Amsterdam.
He graduated in Chemistry at Utrecht University, majoring in environmental and analytical chemistry, and received PhD on bioaccumulation of pollutants in aquatic invertebrates at the VU University Amsterdam. He is a senior scientist in environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology with more than 25 years of experience, and has been involved in research in many fields at environmental NGOs and IVM (VU University Amsterdam), including experimental, field and modelling studies on chemical fate, bioaccumulation and food chain transfer, within the scope of contract research for government and industry, various EU Framework projects (HIC-TBT, ACE, Modelkey, DiPol), and PhD projects. Other recent and current studies include the development of models for the exposure assessment of antifoulants (MAMPEC), field surveys and models for bioavailability and bioaccumulation in freshwater and estuarine food webs, whole effluent testing of industrial effluents with biological and chemical methods, evaluation frameworks for sediment quality assessment, bioavailability of sediment-bound contaminants, and organotins in marine invertebrates and mammals. He has participated in the past in various advisory workshops on exposure assessment and monitoring for the Dutch Government, US-EPA, CEFIC, Eurochlor, and environmental NGOs. Teaching activities included contributions on chemistry and toxicology of pollutants in various BSc and MSc courses at VU and UvA and coaching and supervision of PhD students.
- Jaap Heringa teaches the course Genomics and Bioinformatics at AUC. He obtained his MSc degree in Mathematical Biology, Bioinformatics and Population Genetics and his PhD (Cum Laude) in Bioinformatics from the University of Utrecht.
He gained industrial experience in software development at IBM's International Network Development Centre (INSDC, Uithoorn, Netherlands; 1984-1988) and has worked at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL, Heidelberg; staff researcher 1988-1996) and the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR, London; group leader and senior scientist 1996-2002). Since 2002 he is full professor of Bioinformatics and director of the Centre for Integrative Bioinformatics (IBIVU) at VU University of Amsterdam. Since 2008 he has also served as chairman of the Education Committee and in 2010 became Scientific Director of the Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC). His areas of research are Bioinformatics and Systems Biology.
- Dr. Alfons G. Hoekstra is an Associate Professor in Computational Science at the Informatics Institute of the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. in Computational Physics, also from the University of Amsterdam.
His research interest lies in modelling and simulating real world phenomena, with a focus on Biomedical systems. He is also concerned with large scale distributed computing. He participates in many (international) research collaborations, and currently leads the MAPPER project on Distributed Multiscale Computing. He teaches computational science on both the undergraduate and graduate level.
- Anton Horrevoets teaches Metabolic Biochemistry at AUC. He is currently full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology at the Department of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology at VU University Medical Center.
Anton Horrevoets graduated in Chemistry at Utrecht University, majoring in Biochemistry, and received his PhD on enzyme kinetics in 1990 at the department of Biochemistry in Utrecht. He has held postdoctoral positions at Sanquin Research in Amsterdam and Biochemistry at Queen's University, Kingston Canada on enzyme kinetics of the fibrinolytic system. In 1994 he joined the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, as assistant/associate Professor of Biochemistry and as Established Investigator for the Netherlands Heart Foundation, studying genomics and proteomics of endothelial dysfunction in cardiovascular disease. In 2007 he joined the VU medical Center as Professor of Biochemistry, and is involved in teaching Biochemistry to medical and medical biology students at both Bachelor and Master level. He is a member of several Editorial Boards and Granting committees of NWO and Heart foundation, where he is also involved in teaching cardiovascular science at master and PhD level. His current research interests focus on metabolic derangement of the inflammatory response in cardiovascular disease and how this affects vascular remodeling of the peripheral and coronary circulations, in close collaboration with the Department of Cardiology.
- Martien Kapsenberg teaches Immunology at the AUC. He is professor of Immunobiology at the Academic Medical Center (AMC) at the University of Amsterdam.
He studied Biology at the University of Amsterdam and manages at the Department of Cell biology and Histology of the AMC a long standing research line on immune cell interactions. He is also teaching the principles and capita selecta of immunology in various curricula and courses of bachelor, master and PhD students in medicine, medical biology and immunology at the University of Amsterdam.
- Paul Klint teaches Advanced Programming at AUC and is head of the software engineering department at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI, the Dutch National Research Centre for Computer Science and Mathematics), professor in computer science at the University of Amsterdam and visiting professor at Royal Holloway University of London. He is founding president and now treasurer of the European Association for Programming Languages and Systems (EAPLS), former chair of the national advisory boards on Computer Science and co-founder of the Software Improvement Group (SIG), a CWI spinoff company.
He holds a MSc in Mathematics from the University of Amsterdam (1973) and a PhD in Computer Science from the Technical University Eindhoven (1982). He (co)authored three books and has published over a hundred scientific articles. He was advisor of over 30 dissertations and over 150 master's theses. He has consulted for companies and governments worldwide. His research interests include generic language technology, domain-specific languages, software renovation, and technology transfer. Download his favourite software from www.rascalmpl.org or www.meta-environment.org.
For more information about Paul Klint, please see link below.
- Anco Lankreijer teaches Introduction to Geological Sciences at AUC. He studied Plate Tectonics in Eastern and Central Europe and received a PhD in Earth Sciences at VU University Amsterdam. He currently teaches field courses in Spain and in the Ardennes, as well as courses in academic skills to Earth Scientists.
- Maarten Marx teaches Representing and Reasoning With Knowledge at AUC. Maarten Marx (1964) obtained his master in political science (1990) and his PhD in mathematical logic (1995), both at the University of Amsterdam. Before returning back to UvA he held PostDoc positions at the VU University Amsterdam, Imperial College London, and INRIA-Lorainne, Nancy. His main research topic is XML. His current research interest is integration of large amounts of semi-structured, text-centric, data. Maarten applies his work to political data, in cooperation with the Dutch Parliament, and several research centers in the humanities and political sciences, like the Dutch center for War studies (NIOD) and the Dutch center for Documentation of Political Parties (DNPP).
- Prof. Dr. Ron van Noorden (1951) teaches The Human Body at AUC. He graduated in 1978 with a (cum laude) degree in medical biology from the University of Amsterdam. Subsequently, he became PhD student (PhD in 1983), lecturer (1983-1986), associate professor (1986-1997), full professor in cell biology and histology (1997-present) and chairman (1993-present) of the Department of Cell Biology & Histology of the Academic Medical Center at the University of Amsterdam. He was selected by the students as lecturer of the year twice in the curriculum Medical Informatics (in 1998 and 1999) and twice in the curriculum Medicine (in 2003 and 2004) at the AMC.
His research was always focused on activity of proteins and particularly enzymes in their natural microenvironment, the cell or the extracellular matrix, in pathophysiological conditions such as arthritis, invasion and metastasis of cancer and diabetic retinopathy. Nowadays, protein (enzyme) activity in living cells under these conditions is his major focus to understand cellular processes and to find potential targets for therapeutic strategies. He published over 275 peer reviewed papers and has been promotor of 24 PhD students so far.
He won the Robert Feulgen Prize of the Society for Histochemistry in 1987 together with Roger Butcher for their contribution to quantitative analysis of enzyme activity in situ, he presented the first Piet Van Duijn Lecture of the Dutch Foundation Histochemistry in Kyoto, Japan, 1996 on live cell imaging and in 2008 he won the David Glick Award of the International Federation of Societies for Histochemistry and Cytochemistry.
- Breanndán Ó Nualláin teaches the course Programming your World at AUC. He is a member of the Section Computational Science of the Institute of Informatics at the University of Amsterdam where he develops and decision support systems and distributed systems for scientific computing.
He graduated in Mathematical Physics at University College Dublin, Ireland before continuing his studies there in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Since 1991, he has been employed at the University of Amsterdam, firstly at the Department of Statistics and Methodology where he worked on Automated Reasoning, and later at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation where he conducted research on Machine Learning.
- André Ran teaches Calculus and Linear Algebra II at AUC. He studied mathematics at VU University Amsterdam, and did a PhD there as well. Afterwards he spent a year in the United States and Canada as a postdoc, before returning to VU University Amsterdam, where he is currently professor in Linear Analysis and Systems Theory. His research interests are analysis, linear algebra and systems and control theory.
André Ran enjoys teaching mathematics at all levels, from gifted elementary school children to PhD students.
For more information about André Ran, please see the link below.
- Jan Hindrik Ravesloot (Amsterdam 1961) teaches the theme course, Introduction to Health and Well-being at AUC. He studied Medicine (Leiden University 1986) and did his PhD at Leiden University (1991).
After a three-year post-doctoral period at Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA) he became Assistant Professor at the Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam (AMC-UvA) Department of Physiology in 1993 and was promoted to full Professor in 2001. He and his staff conduct research in ion transport processes in cardiac cells. He is actively involved in advancing (bio)medical (physiology) higher education. Since September 2008 he has been Director of the Graduate School Life and Earth Sciences of the UvA Faculty of Science (FNWI).
- Peter Sloot teaches 'Modelling Real World Problems' at AUC, he is a professor in Computational Science at the UvA and holds a chair in Complex Systems at the St. Petersburg State University in Russia and a chair in modelling and simulation at NTU, Singapore. In his research he tries to quantify and understand how nature processes information.
- Peter Schall teaches the course Physics of Heat at AUC. He is also Assistant Professor in experimental physics at the Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute of the University of Amsterdam.
Peter Schall graduated in Physics at the Technical University of Aachen, where he received his PhD in 2002 on Decagonal Quasicrystals - plastic deformation and structural defects. He did his post doctoral research at Harvard University in Cambridge, U.S.A, as a Humboldt fellow in the field of Soft Matter. In September 2005, he joined the Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute as Assistant Professor in Soft Matter Physics. In 2006, he received the prestigious VIDI award of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) for the investigation of microscopic processes in soft matter with three-dimensional real-space imaging techniques - self-assembly, defect dynamics and dynamic arrest.
For more information about Peter Schall, please see link below.
- Jan Pieter van der Schaar teaches Dynamical Systems and the theme course Introduction to Life, Evolution, Universe at AUC. He is also a Senior Lecturer at the Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics and lectures in Physics and Mathematics. His research is centred on string theory and cosmology.
Jan Pieter van der Schaar obtained his bachelor degree in Physics and Astronomy,and his master degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Groningen. He also received his PhD on "String Theory Limits and Dualities" from the University of Groningen, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, CERN and Columbia University, New York.
For more information about Jan Pieter van der Schaar, please see link below.
- Harry Seijmonsbergen teaches Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at AUC. He is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. He graduated in Earth Sciences (1988) and received his PhD in Natural Sciences (Physical Geography) from the University of Amsterdam (1992).
His research projects include alpine hazard evaluation, landscape geoconservation and Land Use/Cover Change analysis in which field studies, Geographical Information Systems, Remote Sensing and Digital Elevation information form the basis for landscape vulnerability assessment.
His current teaching activities include geo-ecological fieldwork courses in Austria, Peru, Spain, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Practical and theoretical courses include bachelor and master level GIS and Remote Sensing, Natural Hazards and Landscape Analysis practical using both classic stereoscopic air-photo interpretation and 3D ‘Virtual Globe’ applications.
- Wil Smeets teaches The Human Body- Anatomy and Physiology course at AUC. He graduated (cum laude) in Biology at the Katholieke Universiteit of Nijmegen (KUN, The Netherlands). In 1983, he received his PhD (cum laude) on "The Central Nervous System of Cartilaginous Fishes" at the Medical Faculty of the KUN.
He was a visiting scientist to the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware USA in 1983/1984. In 1984 he joined the department of Anatomy at the VU University, where he did research until 2005 and, at the same time, has been teaching Human Anatomy to biomedical students. Since 2002 he is coordinator of the Master Neurosciences at the VU.
- Maarten van Someren teaches Machine Learning at AUC. He is also Assistant Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Amsterdam. After studying Psychology in Amsterdam, one year as researcher at the Dutch Royal Air Force and one year as a graduate student at the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh joined the University of Amsterdam. He has been teaching and doing research about a range of topics that includes Artificial Intelligence, Programming, Cognitive Modelling and Machine Learning. His current interest is in Machine Learning and Data Mining, particularly in Transfer of Learning.
- Ger Stienen coordinates the course Cardiovascular Diseases at AUC. He is Professor in Medical Physiology at the VU, where he teaches Medical Physiology for students in Medical Natural Sciences, the Cardiovascular Research Master of the VU University Medical Centre and is also active in several courses for medical students.
He graduated in Mathematics and Physics at the Radboud University in Nijmegen and obtained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam. In 1985 he moved to the Department of Physiology of the VU. He was chairman and currently serves as treasurer of the European Society for Muscle Research, is visiting Professor at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and is programme leader of the Cardiovascular Research Master. His research interests focus on contractile dysfunction in heart failure and rare skeletal muscle diseases.
- Chris Stolk teaches Numerical Mathematics at AUC and is Assistant Professor in Mathematics at the University of Amsterdam.
He received his MSc degrees in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and a PhD in mathematics, all from Utrecht University. After research positions in Berkeley, Houston and Paris, he became Assistant Professor at the University of Twente. In 2008, he moved to Amsterdam. His research is about imaging from waves, focusing in particular on the mathematics of reflection seismology. He collaborates with researchers in The Netherlands, the US and Canada to further this field, which is relevant for the oil industry and for other application areas.
- Marika Taylor teaches the course Electrons, Waves and Relativity at AUC.
She obtained her MA in Natural Sciences (Theoretical Physics) from the University of Cambridge, and then completed a PhD in high energy theoretical physics in Cambridge under the supervision of Stephen Hawking. After postdoctoral research in Harvard and Utrecht, she joined the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Amsterdam.
For more information about Marika Taylor, please see link below.
- Bas Teusink teaches Systems Medicine. He studied (bio)chemistry in Amsterdam and obtained his PhD in theoretical biochemistry at the University of Amsterdam in 1999.
In 2008 he became full professor in Systems Biology, in particular Integrative Bioinformatics at the VU University Amsterdam. His group focuses on understanding the regulation of metabolic networks, using a combination of theory and modeling, quantitative experimentation and laboratory evolution experiments.
- Aad van der Vaart teaches the course Probability and Statistics at AUC. He is professor of Stochastics in the Department of Mathematics of VU University Amsterdam.
Aad van der Vaart studied Psychology and Mathematics at the University of Leiden, where he also received his PhD on a thesis on semiparametric statistics. He performed research and lectured in Berkeley, Seattle, College Station Texas and Paris, before settling at VU University. He is interested both in purely mathematical aspects of probability and statistics, and in applications, in for instance biostatistics, finance, image and signal processing, and genetics. Since 2009 he is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.
- Etienne Verheijck, is coordinator of the science course The Human Body - Anatomy and Physiology at AUC.
Etienne Verheijck is an Associate Professor in Physiology at the University of Amsterdam /Academic Medical Centre. He has extensive teaching experience in lecturing human physiology to medical and dental students at undergraduate and post-graduate level. He is vice president of the educational board of Medical Informatics at the Academic Medical Centre.
Etienne Verheijck obtained his Master degree in Medical Biology at the University of Amsterdam. He received his PhD on ‘Pacemaker currents in the heart' from the Academic Medical Centre, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Emory's Children's Hospital, Atlanta, USA.
- Arthur Verhoeven teaches Systems Medicine at AUC. He is full professor in Medical Biochemistry at the Academic Medical Centre of the University of Amsterdam since 2009, with special emphasis on control of cellular metabolism. His research focuses on mechanisms controlling fat cell development, autophagy and insulin resistance, using systems biology tools as an important adjunct in laboratory experiments.
- Hylke Vervaeke teaches the courses 'Brain & Mind' and 'Brain & Behavior' at AUC and is a lecturer of Neuroscience at the VU University Amsterdam, Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam.Hylke obtained her MSc in Biomedical Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. She then moved to Amsterdam and received her PhD (on the behavioural aspects and social context of ecstasy use) from the University of Amsterdam in 2009. She has also co-authored a book on Drugs and Alcohol ('Drugs en Alcohol. Gebruik, misbruik en verslaving.', 'Drugs and Alcohol. Use, Abuse and Addiction.' by R. Kerssemakers; R. van Meerten; E.A. Noorlander; H. Vervaeke).
- Anna Watts teaches the course Astrophysics and Cosmology at AUC. She is also an Associate Professor at the Anton Pannekoek Astronomical Institute at the University of Amsterdam.
She studies extreme nuclear and magnetic field physics using neutron stars, focusing in particular on violent dynamical events such as starquakes and explosions. Anna studied Physics at Oxford University before obtaining a PhD in Applied Mathematics (Theoretical Astrophysics) from the University of Southampton in the UK. She held postdoctoral fellowships at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in the USA and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, before moving to Amsterdam in 2008.
- Shimon Whiteson teaches the course Text Mining and Collective Intelligence at AUC. He is also an assistant professor in the Intelligent Autonomous Systems group in the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 2000 with Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Computer Science. He completed his PhD in Computer Science in 2007 from the University of Texas at Austin, where he served as an IBM PhD Fellow. His research focuses on the development of new algorithms to enable intelligent machines to solve complex sequential decision problems. His focus is on decision-theoretic approaches to planning and learning in single- and multi-agent systems, with an emphasis on reinforcement learning.
Source: AUC
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