Currently, I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Data Science and Knowledge Engineering, at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands.

I am coordinating the area of Affective and Visual Computing in my department and I am a member of the RAI group. My research interests include Visual Computing, Machine Intelligence, human emotion recognition and human activity recognition with applications in ambient-assisted living environments and smart learning contexts.

You can find my detailed CV here

My latest research grant initiatives, as Principal Investigator for the University of Maastricht, are following EU Horizon2020 projects:

-2020-2022: ProCare4Life (€6.8m euro) Horizon2020-H2020-SC1-DTH-2019 Innovation project.  Large Scale pilots of personalised & outcome based integrated care using Artificial Intelligence and smart sensors.
-2016-2019: MaTHiSiS (€7.6m euro) Horizon2020-ICT-20-2015 Innovation project will develop innovative tools for learning in formal and informal settings, placing learner’s emotion in the core of the learning procedure and applying cutting-edge learning analytics and AI tecniques for efficient, personalized learning.
-2016-2019: ICT4Life (€3.4m euro) Horizon2020-PHC-25-2015 Research & Innovation project will develop ambient-assisted living instruments and smart interfaces for the elderly and their caregivers and will mainly focus on persons with Dementia, Alzheimer and Parkinson’s.

Courses taught

Bachelor (2015-16): Data and Image Analysis, Period 3.2

Bachelor (2015-now): Human-Computer Interaction and Affective Computing, Period 2.4

Bachelor in University College Maastricht (2019-now): Artificial Intelligence, Period 1.2

Master in AI (2017-now): Computer Vision, Period 1.5

Students and researchers advised/mentored:

Postdoctoral Researchers

2016-2019            Dr Enrique Hortal: User modelling in learning environments with robots and interactive devices

2016-2020             Dr Mirela Popa: Multimodal fusion for activity recognition in indoor environments and personalized interfaces for the elderly.

 

PhD candidates

2007-2017                          (co-promoter with Prof. Dr. B.M. Jansma and Dr. A. A. Vaessen). Dr. Gonny Willems: The development of literacy acquisition in children at familial risk of dyslexia.

2016- 2020 (planned)        (promoter). Mr Dario Dotti: Human behaviour recognition making use of motion features

2016- 2020 (planned)        (promoter). Mr Esam Ghaleb: Emotion recognition using multiple modalities

2016- 2020 (est.)               (promoter). Mr Christos Athanasiadis: Transfer Learning between audio and video modalities in emotion-rich video sequences

2020-2023(est.)                 (promoter). Mr Bulat Khaertdinov: Multimodal human activity recognition

2020-2023(est.)                 (promoter). Mr Alexandros Doumanoglou: Explainable AI in human-machine interaction settings

 

Research Assistants

2017- 2019                    Mr Matteo Amestoy – Adaptive interfaces and deep learning

2016- 2017                    Mr Dimitrios Koutsoukos – Emotional Computing and Ambient Assisted Living

 

MSc students

2016                    Joris Bukala. Heart Rate estimation using computer vision techniques

2017                    Stefan Selzer. Evaluation and Prediction of the capacity utilization of a university’s learning spaces

using Machine Learning Techniques

2017                    Justus Schwan. Emotion recognition in the wild in HRI applications

2018                    Maximilian Knobloch. Detecting Normal and Abnormal Behaviour using Trajectory Information, Aimed for People with Dementia

2020                    Jan Lucas: Multimodal fusion for emotion recognition

 

Bachelor Students

2019                     Frederik Calsius. ‘Synthesizing Personality Traits With Generative Adversarial Networks’

2019                     Adam Eljasiak. ‘Can You Hear a Face? – Measuring The Quality of Spectrograms Generated by Generative Adversarial Network From Faces’

2017                     Evangelos Trikoupis. ‘AI-driven adaptation of collaborative learning games for engagement maximization’

2016                     Sharon Hallmans. ‘Optimizing, in real-time, interactive environments through user emotion’

2016                     Carmen Zarco. ‘Re-usable and adaptable serious gaming in education’

2016                     Florens von Bulwaldt. ‘Implementation of smart homes using reed sensors for activity analysis’

2016                     Ramy Al Sarif. Bachelor thesis on ‘ Spatio-temporal facial analysis modelling engagement in real-time interactive environments’

2016                     Bartosz Czaszyński. Bachelor thesis on ‘Human activity recognition in Human-Robot interactions’