Dashboard – AI Zone

About Me:

I teach computers to process language using deep neural networks, which are AI algorithms. My goal is to make the computer mimic the way humans process language, particularly for metaphorical language, such as idioms and proverbs.
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Hi there! I am a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.
A PhD is the last education you need at the university to become a real scientist!
I studied artificial intelligence before and am now working on teaching computers to process language the way humans do.
I am Dutch and moved to Edinburgh, Scotland in 2020.
As a Dutchie, I am used to cycling everywhere, but in Scotland, the landscape makes that a bit harder. I love cats, I love foreign languages, I love Netflix and I love coding!
My pronouns are:

she/her
My Work:

I am a PhD student that teaches computers to process language, with a particular interest in figurative language. I work with models like ChatGPT: ask me how they work 🙂
My Typical Day:

I get up and first need some coffee before I take a short walk and start working on my computer. In the morning, I usually read books and write code. In the afternoon, I have meetings with my research group or classes at the university.
What I'd do with the prize money:

I would like to use the prize money to support DataKirk, a super cool Scottish organisation that tries to increase diversity in the data science community, and offers courses for adults and kids, in statistics, programming and data analytics. The prize money would be donated for the purpose of organising the kids’ classes, for which I volunteered myself in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Candidate CV questions (extra)

Education:

Primary school: Prins Mauritsschool, Netherlands /

Secondary school: Wartburg College, Netherlands /

Bachelor and Master: University of Amsterdam, Netherlands /

PhD: University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Qualifications:

I have a BSc and MSc in Artificial Intelligence, and am only 1 year away from obtaining my PhD degree in Natural Language Processing!

I also won a cool price at Leiden University in 2014 for a paper I wrote in secondary school,
was selected as one of the best master students in the Netherlands in 2017 by the company of ASML, and won a best academic paper award in 2021.
Work History:

Teaching Assistant, University of Amsterdam

Research scientist intern, Fundamental AI Research Lab, Meta

Teaching Assistant, University of Edinburgh

My Interview
- How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
  
  cat-loving colourful programmer
  
  What did you want to be after you left school?
  
  A scientist!
  
  Were you ever in trouble at school?
  
  Like a real Dutchie, I had to cycle very very long to secondary school (55 minutes single trip). That caused me to (almost) be late many times...
  
  Who is your favourite singer or band?
  
  Alan Walker
  
  What's your favourite food?
  
  Poffertjes!! This is a very nice Dutch treat.
  
  If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
  
  I would want to speak 10 languages fluently, get a cat, and move my entire family to Scotland.
  
  Tell us a joke.
  
  The other day my Computer crashed. Luckily there were no injuries.