About Us
ECDA serves as a flagship centre within Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), facilitating applied research and active learning in the domains of AI, data, digitalisation, and making it tangible through immersive technology which encompasses VR and AR and creates captivating digital experiences. This technology intersects with AI, data, and digitalisation by harnessing data-driven insights for personalised interactions, leveraging AI for enhanced realism, and contributing to industrial digital transformation via interactive and data-rich environments. This convergence increases customer engagement, empowers informed decision-making, and drives innovation across sectors.
We concentrate on supporting the development and application of data analytics methods to address real-world challenges. Hence, we partner with both public and private organisations through an extensive partner programme.
Our Belief
We hold the belief that data, algorithms, and AI act as vehicles to bring the necessary changes and transitions required to confront current and future societal challenges and to move closer to achieving objectives like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We recognise our responsibility to equip our society with emerging talent that is proficient in data and AI – preparing them to navigate the swiftly evolving AI landscape in an effective and thoughtful manner. This approach should contribute to society in a positive and sustainable way.
Our Approach
At ECDA, our hands-on, human-centred approach serves as a central tenet of our programmes and activities. This approach involves working with real and current data sets, along with real individual, organisational, and societal challenges.
This human-centred approach is a critical aspect, and the link between context, strong techniques and society is a direct embodiment of the different schools (rooted in law, sociology, art, business, economics, and healthcare) that together form the Erasmus University Rotterdam and shape the Erasmian values.
We encourage and facilitate vital debates on AI’s design and the ethical, social, and legal considerations surrounding its use and societal impact. We contemplate its influence on aspects such as consumers, employers, workers, and the emerging generation of talent. In this light, we strongly believe that a balanced focus on context, techniques, algorithms, and human aspects is essential to ensure these technologies effectively serve broader society.
Our Focus
Within the ECDA community, we focus on facilitating multidisciplinary collaborations across established and emerging domains through various ways, including:
- Creating a structure of expert practices and chapters centred around specific impact themes;
- Enabling and igniting collaborative research and innovation programmes and initiatives;
- Cultivating and linking our fast-growing and diverse network of external partners with our researchers;
- Building and nurturing a strong community around data, AI, digitalisation and immersive technology through EUR initiatives and organisations like AiPact, Q-Intelligence, EDSC (EUR University library), and ErasmusX, CLI, EDIS and ERS;
- Facilitating and organising regular opportunities for engagement with both internal and external stakeholders through planned events, such as the annual Erasmus Data Summit and other gatherings, as well as spontaneous encounters within our physical hub: the Erasmus Data Collaboratory – Convergence House-of-AI.
Our Structure
Currently, the ECDA organisational structure includes 28 Expert Practices (or XPs), the Erasmus Initiative ‘AiPact,’ and the Convergence House-of-AI initiative ‘the Erasmus Data Collaboratory’:
- The Expert Practices focus on four foundational domains (technologies, methods, organisation & governance, and human/societal perspective) and five application domains (industry, health & care, port & logistics, energy & sustainability, public).
- The Erasmus Initiative ‘AiPact’ revolves around innovative and interdisciplinary AI research and education that places people and society at its core.
- The Erasmus Data Collaboratory | House-of-AI functions as the campus hub for data and AI activities.
"You cannot look at data analytics in isolation anymore. It is not just influencing technology, operation management and marketing – it is redefining whole industries”
Gerrit Schipper
Executive Director, ECDA
Team
Academic Directors
Prof. Dr. Ting Li
Professor of Digital Business at RSM
Fields of expertise: digital strategy, e-commerce, digital platforms, business analytics, social media and mobile marketing, digital advertising, pricing and revenue management. Professor Li’s interdisciplinary research has been sponsored by multiple grants from the Dutch National Science Foundation (NWO) and multinational companies.
Prof. Dr. Gui Liberali
Professor of Digital Marketing at RSM
Fields of expertise: marketing analytics, machine learning, advertising analytics, optimal learning, multi-armed bandits, adaptive trials, online advertising, morphing theory and applications, and dynamic programming. Professor Liberali is also a researcher at the Erasmus Medical Center, developing methods for clinical trials.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Ketter
Professor of Next Generation Information Systems at RSM and University of Cologne
Fields of expertise: autonomous systems, energy and mobility, sustainable energy and digitalization using AI and ML. Prof. Ketter is also Director at the Erasmus Center for Future Energy Business, Professor at the University of Cologne, Director at the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne and Fellow and member of the Global Future Council on Mobility at the World Economic Forum.
Prof. Dr. Liesbet van Zoonen
Professor of Sociology & and Popular Culture at ESSB
Fields of expertise: data governance and management, particularly around the social, ethical and individual consequences of the urban data revolution for people in the city. Professor Van Zoonen is also Academic Director at the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for BOLD Cities and Dean at the Erasmus Graduate School Social Sciences and Humanities.
Dr. Robert Rooderkerk
Associate Professor of Operations Management at RSM, ECDA Lab Director of Retail Analytics, and Academic Director of the MScBA Business Analytics &Management at RSM
Fields of expertise: supply chain analytics, management of products and services lifecycle based on using data and analytics. His research addresses retail operations challenges on the marketing-operations interface, with an emphasis on omnichannel retail. He is particularly interested in research questions related to assortment, product lines, and fulfillment. His empirical work integrates insights from psychology and consumer behavior with advanced analytics that include Bayesian statistics, econometrics and operations research. His conceptual work focuses on how new technologies, data sources, advanced analytics, and business models are reshaping the global retail landscape.
Dr. Anne Kathrin Klesse
Professor of Marketing at RSM
Field of expertise: impact of technology on consumer judgment and decision making, consumer perceptions of AI and algorithmic advice. Dr. Klesse was awarded the prestigious Veni grant from NWO for her research on voice interfaces and decision making. She has frequently visited Stanford Graduate School of Business as a Visiting Researcher.
Prof. Dr. Payal Arora
Professor of Technology, Value and Global Media Cultures at ESPhil
Fields of expertise: digital anthropology, bringing together tech platforms, digital marketeers, designers, think-tanks and digital anthropologists to venture into the understanding of user behaviour and motivations. Professor Arora is also Director of a digital activism organization, Catalyst Lab
Dr. Yashar Ghiassi-Farrokhfal
Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Management at RSM
Fields of expertise: digital energy, wholesale and retail energy markets, energy system integrations, energy storage systems, smart charging and e-mobility, and city-wide energy planning. Also ivolved in the European project FlexSUS which aims at providing a decision support system for sustainable and efficient energy transitions for city planners.
Prof. Dr. Peter van der Spek
Professor of Pathology & Clinical Bioinformatics at EMC
Fields of expertise: Biological Studies, Computer Science, Information Engineering and mathematics and statistics to support the diagnostics of complex patients. Professor Van der Spek is also Visiting Professor at the University of Chulalongkorn Bangkok, Thailand
Prof. Dr. Klaus Heine
Professor of Law and Economics at ESL
Fields of expertise: legal consequences of technological disruption. Professor Heine is also the Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Digital Governance. He is also a member of the platform Learning Systems of the German government.
Prof. Dr. Rob Zuidwijk
Professor of Global Supply Chains and Ports at RSM
Fields of expertise: coordination for sustainable global supply chains, synchromodal transport networks and inter-organisational systems in logistics. Professor Zuidwijk is also Captain of Science of the Topsector Logistics in the Netherlands and ambassador Smart Logistics of SmartPort, a collaborative arrangement with the port community of Rotterdam.
Dr. Iris Wallenburg
Associate professor Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management
Iris Wallenburg is an associate professor at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She studies how AI transforms traditional practices of providing, receiving and governing healthcare. Iris leads two national action-based research projects related to healthcare staffing and employment (RN2Blend and RegioZ), in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Vilans, professional associations and field level parties (i.e. hospitals, nursing homes) and collaborating universities. She is a member of a national advisory committee for future healthcare employment, and has joined various national and international research initiatives to strengthen healthcare workforce development
Prof. Dr. Moniek Buijzen
Professor of Communication and Behavioural Change at ESSB
Fields of expertise: benefits of digital technology in a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, dissemination of health campaigns for youth and peer influencers in online social networks. Professor Buijzen also leads the NWO funded SocialMovez project.
Prof. Dr. Yvonne van Everdingen
Professor of Marketing and Innovation at RSM
Fields of expertise: marketing of new products, use of new technologies (VR, AR) for the development and launch of new products and consumer adoption of sustainable new products. She is also a member of the EUR Diversity Advisory Board of the Erasmus University Rotterdam, member of the Special Interest Group Virtual Reality at the Erasmus Behavioral Lab, member of the “Profgroep Onderwijs” of the MOA Expertise Center, and chair of the jury for the MOAward Insights Scientist of the Year.
Dr. Luca Berchicci
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and New Business Venturing at RSM
Fields of expertise: decision making in problem solving, firm’s capabilities building, (green) innovation and business models and machine learning algorithms for model uncertainty mapping. His primary interest lies at the intersection of strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation.
Prof. Dr. Dennis Fok
Professor of Econometrics and Data at ESE
Fields of expertise: econometrics, data science, machine learning, marketing, and high dimensional data. Professor Fok also advices companies and other organizations on research related issues. He is the director of the Econometric Institute and the Academic Director of the master in Business Analytics & Quantitative Marketing (specialization within the Econometrics and Management Science program).
Dr. Aurélie Lemmens
Associate Professor of Marketing Management at RSM
Fields of expertise: customer analytics, machine learning, causal interference, optimization of managerial decisions such as customer targeting. She is the author of the recently developed ProfitBoost algorithm to optimize customer retention campaigns. Dr. Lemmens was awarded several prestigious grants, including a Marie Curie from the European Research Council, a Veni and a Vidi grant from NWO.
Prof. Wiro Niessen
Full professor in Biomedical Image Analysis and ML at EMC
Fields of expertise: development, validation and implementation of quantitative image analysis methods in clinical practice and biomedical research, linking imaging to genetics data, radio(geno)mics, and image-guided interventions.
Dr. Kristiaan Glorie
Executive Director at Erasmus Q-Intelligence
Fields of expertise: econometrics, data science, machine learning, operations research. Dr. Glorie leads the development of data science and AI solutions for businesses at Erasmus Q-Intelligence, and he advises organizations on their implementation. He is the director of the post-master Data Science & Business Analytics program.
prof.dr. Claartje ter Hoeven
Professor of Organizational Dynamics in the Digital Society at EUR
Professor ter Hoeven is the scientific director and coordinator of the interdisciplinary master and research program ‘Organizational Dynamics in the Digital Society’. Her scholarly interests encompass constant connectivity, digital labor, algorithmic management, and worker’s well-being. Currently, her teaching and research focuses on how digital technologies reconfigure work for different people in different types of work.
Research interests: Digital labor, algorithmic management, remote work, worker’s well-being
prof.dr. (Marcus) M Specht
Full professor at Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences
Prof. Dr. Marcus Spechtis Professor for Digital Education at the Technical University of Delft and Director of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Center for Education and Learning. He is also Professor for Learning Technologies at the Welten Institute of the Open Universiteit. His research focus is on Mobile and Contextualized Learning Technologies and Social and Immersive Media for Learning. Prof. Specht is an Apple Distinguished Educator and was President (2013-2015) of the International Association of Mobile Learning.
dr. (Trilce) T Navarrete Hernandez
Assistant Professor of Digital Cultural Economics at EUR
Specialist in the economic and historic aspects of digital heritage. Navarrete is scientific advisor at the [European Group of Museum Statistics ][European Group of Museum Statistics](EGMUS) since 2011, board member of the [International Committee of Documentation][] of the International Council of Museums (CIDOC), and regular guest lecturer at various Museology programs worldwide.
prof.dr. (Martijn) MG de Jong
Professor of marketing research at the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE)
A professor of quantitative marketing at the Erasmus School of Economics, and formerly a visiting scholar at Columbia Business School and New York University. Acted as a data science & artificial intelligence consultant for various companies in the market research, luxury & defense industries, for the Catholic Church, and also served as a legal expert witness.
prof.dr. (Gabriele) G Jacobs
Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Culture at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (ESSB)
Professor Gabriele Jacobs is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Culture at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences and Academic Director “AI in public safety and security” expert practice at ECDA. Her research interests include: Organizational change, justice and identity, leadership, international public safety management, civic engagement, co-creation, methodology. Since September 2022 Gabriele Jacobs leads the NWA project AI-MAPS (Artifical Intelligence in Multi-Agency Public Safety), an multi-disciplinary research project with more than 20 partners from academia, the private and public sector and civil society.
Core team
Dr. Marcel van Oosterhout
Associate Executive Director ECDA
Marcel van Oosterhout is passionate about the opportunities of digitalization and tech to create societal impact. He is especially active in the context of the energy transition and creating resilient and sustainable cities. Strong in initiating and developing innovative ideas, projects and partnerships on the edge of science and practice, that combine the best of people, technology, knowledge and innovation. Academic background with a PhD from Rotterdam School of Management on Business Agility and Information Technology in Service Organizations. Over 25 years of experience in project development, project management, applied research and executive training programs. Broad expertise and interest, working with a wide range of international public and private partners. Marcel has extensive experience in large European innovation programs. Before his current role he led the Erasmus Centre for Future Energy Business and the New World of Work programme within RSM. Part time coach for RSM master students in the business information management track. Team player, optimist, networker, making complex matters understandable via the power of visualizations. Linking students and the academic world with practitioners from public and private partners gives him a lot of energy.
Marlon Domingus
Data Protection Officer
Marlon Domingus serves as Data Protection Officer for the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), the EUR Holding and RSM BV. He is regularly tasked as chair of working groups on national level. He is responsible for the content of free online courses on data protection and the GDPR. Marlon specializes in GDPR, and writes and speaks about privacy governance, (data) ethics, privacy by design & privacy engineering, risk management & privacy audits, and developments in EU data governance reform. He has a background in philosophy.
Marta Stachowiak-De Wit
Marketing Lead
Passionate about the customer domain, entrepreneurship, stakeholder management and data driven decision making. Previously part of the founding team of Erasmus Enterprise at the Erasmus University, and later Head of Marketing and Communications. Strong in strategic positioning, community building, (new) concept and brand development, and portfolio management. Before this, gained international corporate operations management and project management experience as Customer Excellence Manager EMEA. Avid in creative management, specialized in developing video presence, framing, and storytelling. Team player, leading by example, lifelong learning, human/society centered innovation and tech, and combining strategic management with eyes for a strong delivery.
Jos van Dongen
Director Erasmus Data Collaboratory
Director of the ECDA Data Collaboratory, where Data & AI come to life. An experienced consultant/team leader/trainer in all areas of data & analytics and a speaker at national and international conferences on topics such as Data visualization, Data Science, Analytics, and Big Data.
Authored the Dutch book “Low cost, high value? Open Source oplossingen voor Business Intelligence” and co-authored the Wiley books “Pentaho Solutions” and “Pentaho Kettle Solutions”.
Matthijs Malkus
Project and Event Manager
Background in public administration and health economics. Sustainability and data enthusiast, with previous experience as a lector at Erasmus University College in health sciences and economics. Founder of the sustainable initiative ‘Plantaarnpaal’ that aims to make the city greener by growing plants on street lampposts. Project manager of the EUR Smart campus project and AI@EUR program. Strong in organizing, connecting and analyzing. Loves finding new and creative ways to make ECDA & the EUR a better place.
Emma Olde Boerrigter
Graphic Designer
A creative individual who enjoys finding answers to questions and gaining knowledge on a daily basis. Currently studying MSc Strategic Management at RSM, having previously completed a BSc in International Economics and Business Economics at ESE with a major in Strategy Economics and a minor in Computer Science. Passionate about design, programming, and understanding how developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence help shape the future.
