Abhigyan Singh is an Assistant Professor of Design Anthropology for Social Change at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft and a Research Fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute). His research investigates how energy and climate transitions unfold in everyday life at neighbourhood and community scales across the Global North and Global South. His work centres on fairness, inclusion, and justice; non-market value exchange (reciprocity, gifting, sharing); and he develops hybrid approaches that combine design, digital, computational, and traditional techniques for qualitative field research. His work has been exhibited at Dutch Design Week and recognized with the WWNA Apply Award.

Researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS | Leiden University) and co-chair of the UNESCO Chair for Diversity and Inclusion in Global Science. André is a research fellow at the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), and he is also affiliated with the Brazilian Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES).

Ayca Szapora is a neuroscientist, cognitive psychologist and coach.

Bas van Vossen is advisor digital system applications and innovations for delta and water technology at Deltares. He is program manager of DigiLab Toegepaste Kennis (Applied science and technology), an initiative of 10 leading applied science institutes in The Netherlands to enhance the use of each others' data, algorithms, models and computational facilities through development of a federative virtual research facility. He has over 20 years experience with international projects, has been department head for over 9 years, and is product business owner of the Linux computational cluster at Deltares. At this research day he will share the ambitions and ideas in realizing DigiLab Toegepaste Kennis.

A user-centric pragmatic approach based on over 23 year of experience. Originally trained in Applied Physics with a specialisation in numerical fluid dynamics, Bas van Vossen brings together interdisciplinary teams to address various challenges . As coordinator of DigiLab Toegepaste Kennis (Applied Knowledge), he leads a consortium of 10 Dutch Applied Knowledge Institutes in erecting a virtual facility to enable easy access to and use of each other’s data, algorithms and models.

I work on digital autonomy in research and education, focusing on how digital infrastructure can support collaboration while giving researchers and educators more control over their data and tools.

I am currently project manager of the SURF Nextcloud pilot, a national initiative in which multiple institutions build and test an open collaboration platform for research and education.

My background is in educational sciences, where I worked as a PhD candidate, postdoc and university lecturer. Today I work at the intersection of research, education and IT, focusing on open technologies and shared infrastructure for the sector.

I am a physicist, but I have worked in the research data management field for the last twenty years. I have been working as advisor in the Data Management Service team at SURF (surf.nl) since 2019. I support researchers in using data management tools and services, like Yoda and iRODS, applying the best practices in research data management. With my team and other colleagues, I design new data platforms and solutions, in national projects, like Yoda as connecting infrastructure for seamless open science, within the Open Science NL program, and in EU projects, like Sustainable Green Europe Data Space (SAGE).

Daan is the lead product manager for compute services at SURF.

Doctoral Candidate researching the development and use of EU foundation model within the OpenEuroLLM project.
Diana is working at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Dorien works at 4TU.ResearchData (Delft) as Training coordinator for the Open Science NL-funded project to create a National training and community platform for data professionals. This project is carried out by Research Data Netherlands, a consortium consisting of 4TU.ResearchData, DANS, Health-RI and SURF and lasts until 2028. Previously, Dorien worked as a data steward in several universities.

Dr. Girgin is the lead of the Center of Expertise in Big Geodata Science, a facility advancing geospatial big data and cloud computing technologies. His research focuses on scalable, cloud-native geospatial data access and processing, with particular attention to performance and energy efficiency. He develops tools and platforms that support Open Science and best practices in research data management and research software development. He has led the design and development of platforms such as Open Data Explorer and OpenSTAC, enabling efficient discovery and access of large-scale research data. His leads collaborative projects, including CLOUD-NES and ECO-SCALE. He had also developed methodologies and systems for industrial risk assessment, including the European Commission's eNatech database and the RAPID-N system. He serves on the ESA DestinE Sounding Board NL, is an eScience Center Fellow, and a SURF Research Support Champion.

Duuk is Advisor Responsible AI, working on ethical uses of AI in research and education at SURF.

Founder of AI Studio Delta, and developer of GEITje, a Dutch Large Language Model

Researcher and teacher at Maastricht University.

Connecting science and technology has been a red thread throughout Erik’s career. From humble beginnings writing code to process large next-generation sequencing data, to designing cloud pipelines at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Cambridge. After several years focused on technology, his work gradually shifted toward policy and strategy, standing at the origins of one of the first Data Competence Centres in the Netherlands. Facilitating the cultural change needed to adopt data and technology as an accelerator for research added a human dimension to the mix of tech and science. Currently, as head of Research IT Services at Wageningen University & Research and chair of the Yoda consortium, he works with institutions across the Netherlands to shape sustainable research data infrastructures at national scale.

I'm working in the domain of research support and research infrastructure at Eindhoven University of Technology. My focus is on organising and optimising organisational and IT processes for researchers to scale up their research (data) workflows.

Eveline Crone is a Dutch professor of neurocognitive developmental psychology at Leiden University, where she heads the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Institute of Psychology.

Her research examines the psychological and neural processes involved in self-regulation and social development. All of her work employs a developmental cognitive neuroscience approach to examine the relation between brain development and changes in psychological processes from birth to adulthood, with a special focus on adolescence.

I work as a training coordinator at Health-RI, where I am enthusiastically committed to professionalising data stewardship through national initiatives such as RDNL, the TDCC-LSH FAIR fellowship programme and the LEARNFAIR project. Within the Health-RI network, we organise a yearly course for data stewards in the health domain. Before moving to Health-RI, I was a central data steward and a subject librarian at Leiden University Libraries.

Francesco is a Senior Research Software Engineer at the Netherlands eScience Center, the Dutch national center of expertise for software in academic research. In his position, he collaborates with researchers on topics related to Environment and Sustainability, combining experience in data handling and HPC with a more recently developed passion for geospatial applications.

“Data” has been the common thread throughout the career of Harm Bodewes: data modelling, data science, data warehouses, data lakes, (master) data management and data mesh are his main areas of interest. Harm advises organisations, teaches courses and gives presentations, writes blog posts and contributes to the podcast De Dataloog.

In December 2024, he was appointed Lector of Data Intelligence for Sustainable Transitions at HAS green academy. The research group investigates how technology can contribute to sustainable solutions in agriculture, food and the living environment, and connects these domains through artificial intelligence, data‑driven knowledge and applications. More information about the research group: https://www.has.nl/en/research/professorships/data-intelligence-for-sustainable-transitions-professorship/

Jet Zoon works as a Data Steward Research at the Big Data Core of the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology. Here she raises awareness of good RDM practices by developing and providing training and support, and coordinating a community of local data stewards to help good data practices reach researchers at every level. With a background in neuroscience, she brings a researcher's perspective, helping teams understand and apply the FAIR data principles in their day-to-day practice.

As part of a broader data governance project, Jet was responsible for developing a core metadata standard tailored to research needs. At the SURF Research Day, she will share the process of arriving at a standard that strikes a pragmatic balance — concise and researcher-friendly, yet robust enough to make data meaningfully findable and reusable — without overburdening the researchers it's meant to support.

Projet leader at Radboud University for the open source PEP Repository software for responsible data sharing.

Jolien is chair of the UKB working groep research data at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

I build scalable, open-source data ecosystems designed for complex transitions in agriculture and sustainability. With a background in Applied Data Science and Computer Vision, I focus on bridging the gap between high-level strategy and robust technical implementation.

My work at HAS green academy involves designing cloud-agnostic architectures that prioritize interoperability and transparency. I advocate for reproducible workflows and open standards over proprietary lock-ins.

Technical Focus:
- Engineering: Python, Airflow, Docker, PostgreSQL.
- Applied AI: Computer Vision (Animal Behavior), LLMs, Machine Learning Engineering.
- Data Management: CKAN, Open Metadata Standards, Sensor Data Integration.
- Domain Expertise: Sustainable Transitions, Agriculture, Learning Analytics.

I am a research software engineer with backgrounds in geo-informatics, smart city technology and research, agricultural sciences, and education. I am also an eScience Fellow, and part of the Digital Competence Centre at TU Delft, where I have lead software projects, established cross-institutional collaborations, and taking part in national open science projects.

Marcel is Manager Netwerk Research Data Support bij Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and chair of the DCC-IN.

Maurice Vanderfeesten is a passionate merger of ideas. He currently works as Innovation Manager Research Services at the University Library of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
He believes in a multi-disciplinary approach and is responsible for co-creating library services for Open Science, Scholarly Communication Workflows and Research Intelligence.

Maurice studied Information Sciences at Utrecht University, worked at SURF, a cooperation of Dutch universities for IT-innovation, on scholarly information infrastructures, Open Access repositories and enhanced publications, and worked at TU Delft on research data management.

Mees Altena has a BSc in HBO-ICT with a specialization in Software Engineering, earned at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. He has been working as a software engineer since 2022 and has been working in the same role at ASTRON since September 2024.

Menno de Vries is an information management advisor at the Princess Máxima Center, where he plays a key role in strengthening the organization’s research data and Research‑IT landscape. With a background in biomedical sciences, he works closely with researchers, data stewards, and IT‑Research specialists to improve data governance, streamline workflows, and support the adoption of FAIR and secure data‑handling practices across the institute. He is implementation lead of the findability infrastructure for research, enabling researchers to easily locate and explore distributed datasets across the organization and beyond.

Associate Professor in Social - Digital Innovations for Energy transitions and Climate change. Designing for just participation and feedback loops through data-driven narratives as boundary objects

Nicole Emmenegger is Network Manager of the Thematic Digital Competence Centre for the Social Sciences and Humanities (TDCC SSH) based at DANS. In this role she works at the intersection of research, infrastructure, and policy to strengthen FAIR data and software practices across the Dutch SSH landscape.
Nicole brings nearly two decades of experience in strategic programme direction, policy development and international collaboration. Before joining DANS, she worked in the cultural heritage sector, including at the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision, where she focused on digital innovation and research collaboration.
Her work centres on building communities around responsible data practices, strengthening digital research infrastructures, and ensuring that the Social Sciences and Humanities are well positioned within broader national and European open science initiatives.

Peter has many years of experience at SURF in supporting research and has been involved in programmes such as Enlighten Your Research, Support4research, masterclasses in research support and the SURF research boot camp. Since the emergence of DCC's, he has set up a programme with CfPs for SURF-DCC projects and is now rolling out a programme called Build skills and capacity, with the aim of making sure researchers have the right skills needed for the digitisation of science.

I’m Pieter Broere, an information management advisor focused on improving how organizations use and manage information. I enjoy turning complex challenges into clear, practical solutions and helping teams make smarter, future‑proof decisions. With a calm, analytical approach, I work at the intersection of strategy, digital transformation, and collaboration.

Raymond Oonk is a program manager at SURF. Within the SURF Innovation Zone for Infrastructures he leads the programmes on "Federation & Interoperability" and "Sustainability & Governance". Together with Research Groups, Digital Competence Centers and Tier 2 HPC centers, he aims to prepare the Dutch research supporting IT ecosystem for the future needs by researchers.

Roel Boumans graduated from Delft University of Technology in Aerospace Engineering on the topic of space robotics in 1988. He worked in industry for over 25 years, and obtained is PhD in Medical Sciences at Radboud University in 2020 on the topic of robots in healthcare. He is now working as an assistant professor at the Behavioural Science Institute of the Radboud University. He has started in 2020 the social human agent and robot communication (SHARC) lab on research into designing and building virtual humans. Several experiments have already been done with virtual humans for healthcare, politics, sports and commerce.

Sander Vlugter 31, Research Engineer DevOps.
Hogeschool Utrecht - Team Research Support & IT.

In my role I support researchers across my organization by helping them design, develop, and scale research software and computational workflows. My work includes advising on coding challenges, enabling the use of platforms such as Research Cloud, and helping researchers navigate technical and infrastructure needs so they can focus on their projects. Alongside this, I contribute to strengthening the organization’s research ecosystem by administering the GitHub research organization, supporting SRAM processes, and guiding Research Software Management Plans—while continuously identifying opportunities to improve collaboration, reproducibility, and the sustainability of research software.

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Stef de Groot, a research engineer at HU University of Applied Sciences, has experience developing applications for various research purposes. He also manages HU University of Applied Sciences' VRE.

Thomas is a member of SURF’s high-performance machine learning team, where he develops AI models that are trained efficiently on high-performance computing systems while also learning effectively to achieve strong performance. Currently involved in national and European initiatives on large language models, as well as the national AI factory, Thomas is working at the intersection of research and deployment.

Solution Architect focused on research within the University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

Vanessa Monna is a Postdoctoral Researcher at TU Delft, Department of Human-Centred Design, Co-Designing Social Change section. She is involved in two EU-funded LIFE projects: Hands-On: Learning Processes to build Multi-stakeholder Energy and Climate Assemblies towards a Just and Clean Energy Transition and Irene: Catalysing Inclusive, Representative, Equitable Energy reNovation wavE. The projects regard energy transition and justice, enabling fair and inclusive pathways for systemic change. She is coordinating the Resilient Delta Initiative Tiny Lives Unseen, which explores how low-cost cameras can help people observe insect life in urban environments and how such technologies shape citizens’ engagement with biodiversity.
Before TU Delft, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Polimi DESIS Lab. Her PhD focused on Civic Design, and she was a Visiting PhD Scholar at the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. Vanessa has over ten years of international teaching experience in Design.

Joaquin Vanschoren is an associate professor at TU Eindhoven and leads the research group on Advanced Models through Open Research and Engineering (AMORE). He aims to scientifically understand and build AI systems with advanced capabilities, and make AI accessible to benefit all of humanity.

He founded OpenML, an open science platform to streamline and accelerate AI research. He was the inaugural chair of the NeurIPS Datasets and Benchmarks track, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the DMLR journal, co-chair of the MLCommons AI Risk & Reliability working group, and co-founder of the Croissant standard for AI datasets.

He is a founding member of the European AI societies ELLIS and CAIRNE, authored the first book on AutoML, gave tutorials at NeurIPS and AAAI, won several awards (including the Dutch Data Prize and Amazon Research Award), and has been interviewed for news articles in Nature, Science, and podcasts.

With a PhD in biophysics, Rob van der Willigen serves as the Tech-Lead of the HR DataLabs: Healthcare, EAS and AI SusTech; specializing in creating robust data infrastructures (Data Fabric) for explainable AI and Neural Networks. In 2019, he founded the Prometheus Data Science Lab as part of the SURF Digital Competence Center for Practice-Oriented Research, underscoring his deep commitment to the ethical and responsible application of artificial intelligence. He currently drives the technical development of the HR AI-Hub (https://hr-ai-hub.github.io/), providing researchers with sovereign, secure, and on-premises generative AI workflows. Furthermore, his postdoctoral research with the Donders Center for Neuroscience on natural language comprehension forms the scientific foundation for his ongoing focus on machine learning, truth-finding protocols, transparent AI systems and the biological origin of language understanding.

tbd

Research Engineer in AI at Wageningen