Friso Selten recently started a PhD position that is part of the SAILS program. This PhD project is a collaboration between FGGA, LIACS, and eLaw, and is supervised by Bram Klievink (FGGA), Joost Broekens (LIACS), and Francien Deschene (eLaw). In the project Friso will investigate the influence of artificial intelligence within public organizations with a specific focus on decision-making processes. ‘I became particularly enthusiastic about the topic of AI and its application in the public sector while studying for a Master's degree in Data Science at the University of Amsterdam. This inspired me to follow the research master's in Public Administration and Organisational Science at Utrecht University. In this program, I primarily focused on the impact that algorithms have within the street-level bureaucracy. I hope to further investigate these and other aspects of the connection between AI, public administration, and ethics in this PhD project.’

Electrical inner ear prostheses like Cochlear Implants (CIs) help deaf and severely hearing-impaired persons to regain many of their communication abilities. The performance of CI in social environments is, however, not optimal. The new "Machine learning To Enhance teMPoral cOding foR cochleAr impLants“ (TEMPORAL) project, in which Thomas Bäck and Anna Kononova from the Leiden Institute for Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) are involved, will examine how to improve their performance.

On 13 January 2020, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named 95 members ACM Fellows who have demonstrated excellence across many disciplines of computing. Among the new ACM Fellows is Professor Holger Hoos of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, who was specifically selected for his contributions to automated algorithm selection and configuration for optimisation and machine learning: techniques that have had transformative impact in artificial intelligence and beyond. He is only the third recipient in the Netherlands in the history of this prestigious award, after Andy Tanenbaum at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Martin Kersten at CWI, both of whom are now retired.

A new book, Learning to Play: Learning Reinforcement and Games by Aske Plaat is now available.

Here you can find the recordings of previous Florence Nightingale Colloquia.

In the course of 2020 the Faculty of Archaeology was bolstered by some new staff members. Due to the coronavirus situation, sadly, this went for a large part unnoticed. In a series of interviews we are catching up, giving the floor to our new colleagues. We kick off with Dr Tuna Kalayci, who joined the department of Archaeological Science.