The Network Institute is proud to announce six new Academy Assistant Projects for the 2024-2025 academic year. Each project is led by two researchers from different disciplines who can hire two Student Assistants (usually master’s students) to work on the project for one day per week (0.2 fte). Congratulations to all Researchers!
A short description of all projects can be found in the table below. For a more extensive description, please visit the following page: https://networkinstitute.org/project_categories/academy-projects-2024/
Students interested in working on a project are highly encouraged to contact the researchers. Academy Assistant positions are an excellent way of exploring academic research.
| Academy Projects | Researchers |
|---|---|
| Computationally Supported Metaphor Analysis Scientific advancements like AI and quantum computing are often conveyed through metaphors. A new hybrid method simplifies the labor-intensive task of identifying these, blending transparent NLP techniques with targeted manual annotation. |
Gudrun Reijnierse, Pia Sommerauer |
| Depression Detection from Multimodal Neuroimaging Data: Towards Explainability and Generalization AI and machine learning are being used to enhance our understanding of mental health illnesses. This project addresses challenges in explainability and generalization by developing a new GNN with improved detection accuracy. |
Shujian Yu, Guido van Wingen |
| Designing and testing peak spreading interventions – using the VU as a living lab Alongside other societal crises, already taking place in the Netherlands, congestion is proving to be a new one. This project proposes to combine economic and psychological insights to design a large-scale peak-spreading experiment in one of the key hubs of Dutch congestion (the Amsterdam Zuidas), and in its key traveler hub (the VU). |
Erik Verhoef, Ivar Vermeulen |
| Mapping Missionaries in the Dutch Colonial Empire 1600-1960 The Dutch Republic was a leading colonial empire from 1588-1795, with religious workers sent overseas through state-backed companies. Despite extensive colonial historiography, the religious aspect has been overlooked. This project addresses this gap by developing a research agenda focused on religious history in the colonies. A biographical database of Dutch Reformed ministers and missionaries will be integrated into the digital research infrastructure for further analysis. |
Fred van Lieburg, Victor de Boer |
| Visualizing the Future: The Role of Virtual Reality in Promoting Environmental Sustainability This project explores whether virtual reality (VR) can effectively change human behavior in an environmental context, focusing on spillover effects. Participants will interact with various scenarios in a randomized control trial comparing 2D and VR environments. The study will measure behavioral changes over time using digital interventions, surveys, and econometric methods to provide causal estimates of the treatments. |
Charlotte Gerritsen, Sanchayan Banerjee |
| When news resonates: how societal issues permeate people’s lifeworld In an age of concerns about misinformation, audience fragmentation, and polarization, it has become more urgent than ever to understand how news and media impact the way people perceive the world. This project harnesses state-of-the-arts methods in communication science and media/journalism studies to answer the fundamental question: “How and under which circumstances do societal issues ‘break through’ the continuous stream of information and resonate with citizens?” |
Tim Groot Kormelink, Kasper Welbers |