Meet Tom Kouwenhoven, our alumnus who wants to bridge the gap between AI and humans
After successfully completing the Media Technology MSc program, Tom Kouwenhoven became a PhD student. He now investigates how humans and Artificial Intelligence can better communicate with each other, to avoid awkward confusion.
Read about his PhD research, under the guidance of Media Technology lecturer and researcher Tessa Verhoef. Through his work Tom hopes to add a small piece to the large communication puzzle that needs to be laid. His work is part of a greater research project on Socially Embedded AI Systems.
Tom and the Media Technology MSc program
Tom started his Media Technology M.Sc. studies in September 2018. Two years later, in August 2020, he successfully defended his Master's thesis on "Self-Domestication and the Social Brain Hypothesis — a Recipe for Language Development". Another paper, that he wrote with a fellow student Max Peeperkorn during his first year was presented by Tom and Max at the 2019 international conference of the Cognition, Behavior & Evolution Network.
Before coming to Leiden, Tom obtained a bachelor degree in Lifestyle Informatics at VU Amsterdam, and did a minor in Computational Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He enjoys playing field hockey, we hear.