Amsterdam Young Academy welcomes ten new members

On Tuesday 5 November, ten new members of the Amsterdam Young Academy (AYA) were inaugurated by VU rector Jeroen Geurts. Four young scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, three from the University of Amsterdam and three from Amsterdam UMC have been appointed to AYA: the network of young scientists at the VU, UvA and Amsterdam UMC.

AYA is a network of promising young scientists from Amsterdam who are interested in academia beyond the boundaries of their own fields. Founded in 2018 by several Amsterdam-based members of De Jonge Akademie, AYA is committed to interdisciplinary research, social dialogue and science policy.

The ten new members of this cohort are:

Maarten Bolhuis is assistant professor of criminology at the Faculty of Law at VU Amsterdam. His research focuses on crimes committed during wars, investigation and prosecution of such crimes, and the involvement of migrants in them. His research concerns the interaction between criminal law, migration/citizenship law, and human rights law, and connects the disciplines of law, criminology, public administration, and legal psychology. He has been engaged in research on the criminal prosecution of allegedly ‘criminal’ asylum seekers, the identification of (alleged) ‘terrorists’ in asylum procedures, consequences of citizenship revocation of dual citizens convicted for terrorism, and the increasing use of digital evidence in criminal investigation and asylum. contexts. Maarten Bolhuis is Programme Coordinator of an MSc programme in International Crimes, Conflict & Criminology and member of the Center for International Criminal Justice (CICJ) and the Amsterdam Laboratory for Legal Psychology (ALLP).

Laura Dreissen Department of Physics (VU Faculty of Science) is an Assistant Professor at the department of physics of the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Laura received her PhD from the VU with honors in 2020 and was an Alexander-von Humboldt fellow at the metrology institute of Germany, PTB in Braunschweig. In 2023, she moved back to the VU to setup her independent research line in precision measurements in quantum systems for tests of the most fundamental laws of physics.

Micha Heilbron is Assistant Professor of Cognitive AI at the University of Amsterdam. He works at the intersection of Cognitive Science and AI, studying how brains and artificial neural networks understand language and make sense of the world. Previously he did a post-doc in the Predictive Brain Lab at the Donders Institute, and obtained a PhD at the Donders Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (NL), studying the role of prediction in human language processing. He currently focusses on understanding language comprehension in both large language models and the human mind, for which he was recently awarded an NWO Veni talent grant.

Callista Mulder is an assistant professor at the Amsterdam UMC where she focusses on the preclinical development of spermatogonial stem cell-based male fertility restoration therapies for those who currently cannot have a biologically own child otherwise, including childhood cancer survivors, patients with benign hematological disorders and transwomen. In her work, she aims to develop effective novel treatments in the laboratory and performs preclinical safety studies for both recipient and offspring derived from these experimental fertility techniques. In her PhD, she was the first to investigate the long-term health of SSC transplantation recipients and offspring.

Alberto Pérez de Alba Ortíz is an assistant professor in Computational Soft Matter, affiliated to both the van’ t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences and the Informatics Institute at the University of Amsterdam. His research centers on using computer simulations and artificial intelligence to design new molecules and materials to solve challenges in human and planetary health. This is a highly interdisciplinary field, involving Physics-based multiscale simulations, Statistical Mechanics, Biochemistry, High-Performance Computing, and Machine Learning. Examples of topics currently studied in his group include: mechanical responses of biopolymers with key roles in cancer and osteoarthritis, nanoplastic effects on cardiovascular protein function, thermal storage materials for energy-efficient heating and cooling, and aggregation properties of plant-protein mixtures for sustainable food. He is also highly active in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion topic

Elena Rampanelli is an Associate Professor at the Amsterdam University Medical Center. Her research interests include understanding the effects that diet and intestinal microbiota can have on our bodies, especially on host immune and metabolic responses. The research conducted by her group ranges from fundamental to translational and clinical research and is supported by NWO Vidi, PPP-TKI, DKF, and AUMC grants.

Gulnaz Sibgatullina is an Assistant Professor for Illiberal Regimes in the Department of History, European Studies, and Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her research has been focused on the issues of Muslim minorities, specifically on how they are made to “fit into” European societies – both in the past and the present. She has written on Islamic modernist thought in Russia, political ideologies of converts to Islam, and Muslims engaging with liberalism. More broadly, she focuses on contemporary ethnic and minority policies in Russia. She has held visiting positions in the UK, Germany, and the US, and has received prestigious grants such as the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship and KNAW Early Career Partnerships. Besides her academic work, she enjoys pottery and painting.

Giuliana Spadaro is Assistant Professor at the Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology at the VU Amsterdam and co-director of the Cooperation Databank. Her research focuses on the psychology of trust and human cooperation. In particular, she is interested in how the macro-level cultural and institutional context shapes these interpersonal processes. She addresses these questions combining insights from behavioral, survey, and meta-analytic methods, and by integrating theories from psychology, sociology, and political science.

Dirk Jan Stenvers is a clinical internist-endocrinologist and research group leader at the department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at Amsterdam UMC. His specific expertise is neuroendocrinology. He is the chair of the multidisciplinary team for the treatment for pituitary conditions such as Cushing’s disease, acromegaly, and prolactinoma. His research team has a strong translational character and focuses on the circadian (~24 hr) timing system and it’s control of daily rhythms in hormone secretion, sleep-wake behaviour, and food intake. His aim is to use circadian knowledge to improve human health, not only for shift workers but for everyone in our 24/7 society.

Kristina S. Weißmüller is an Assistant Professor in Public Administration at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Her research focuses on public management and the governance of integrity, including administrative corruption, leadership, motivation, and the success factors of cross-sectoral collaboration. As a multidisciplinary expert in behavioral public administration research, she regularly advises public, non-profit, and international organizations (e.g., UNODC, WTO) on issues of anti-corruption, legitimacy, and human resource management.