Jaap van den Herik (1947) is professor of Computer Science and Law at the Faculty of Science (since 2014) and at the Faculty of Law (since 1988). His main task is to be Chair of the Board of Directors of the Leiden Centre of Data Science (LCDS).

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Jaap van den Herik studied mathematics (with honours) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and received his PhD degree at Delft University of Technology in 1983. In 1984 he was visiting professor at the McGill School of Computer Science in Montreal. Thereafter, he was subsequently affiliated with Maastricht University (1987- 2008) and Tilburg University (2008-2016) as full professor in Computer Science. He is the founding director of IKAT (Institute of Knowledge and Agent Technology) and TiCC (Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication) and was supervisor of 93 PhD researchers.

At Leiden University, Van den Herik was affiliated with the department of Computer Science (now LIACS) between 1984 and 1988. He became professor of Computer Science and Law in 1988, at the Center for Law in the Information Society (eLaw). Since 2012, he is also a fellow professor at the Centre for Regional Knowledge Development (CRK), for the supervision of PhD students. Furthermore, he has been part of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) since 2014, where he founded the Leiden Centre of Data Science (LCDS) together with Joost Kok and Jacqueline Meulman.

Van den Herik’s research interests include artificial intelligence, intelligent legal systems, big data and social innovation. In 2012, he received an ERC Advanced Grant together with Jos Vermaseren (PI, Nikhef) and Aske Plaat, for the research proposal “Solving High Energy Physics Equations using Monte Carlo Gaming Techniques.” Van den Herik received a Humies Award in 2014, for his work on chess programming.

Van den Herik is active in many organizations and advisory boards, such as the Belgian Netherlands Association of AI, JURIX, the ICGA, ToKeN, Catch and the consortium BiG Grid. Furthermore, he is a fellow of the European Coordinating Committee for AI (ECCAI), member of TWINS (the research council for sciences of the KNAW) and member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.

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