OW_Trendsconferentie_april2026_head_large.jpg

Speakers

 
Dr. Pieter Rohrbach (ORCID) is working at the Open Universiteit as an assistant professor in the department of Clinical Psychology. He is a affiliated to the sectorplan themes on the topic of 'human factor in new technologies'. Pieter is passionate about the use of technology to improve (mental) health care and overall well-being, because it offers opportunities to complement established treatment options and make health care personal and accessible to all.
Maitta Spronken is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Psychology at the Open Universiteit. She has a broad background in psychology and enjoys working in interdisciplinary collaborations. Together with (PhD) students and colleagues, Maitta studies the determinants of successful implementation and smart use of new healthcare technologies (including electronic health records and AI tools). She is particularly interested in the perspective of healthcare professionals, as their competence and willingness to work with technological innovations are crucial.
Dr. Martin Gevonden is a tenured Assistant Professor at the Department of Biological Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and founder/CEO of VU–Ambulatory Monitoring Solutions B.V., a VU spin-off. His research focuses on stress, trauma, inequality, and mental health, with emphasis on how wearable technologies can be used to monitor the body’s physiological and contextual signals to the benefit of health and well-being in daily life. He directs the development of VU-AMS, an ambulatory monitoring system validated in more than 400 scientific publications and through the spin-off translates this academic innovation into practical technology, supplying state-of-the-art stress biomarkers to researchers and professionals worldwide (www.vu-ams.nl).
  Dr. Cesco Willemse is a cognitive scientist with a focus on social attention and human-robot interaction. He obtained his PhD in Psychology at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. Subsequently, his background in social cognition and expertise in techniques such as EEG and eyetracking enabled him to study how people interact with humanoid robots compared with other humans, as a postdoc at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. In 2023 he started as assistant professor in Human Factors an Cognition at the University of Twente in The Netherlands.
Dr. Daniel F. Preciado Vanegas is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication Science and the Network Institute at VU Amsterdam, where he is part of the Media Psychology group. His research examines the psychological and physiological effects of social robots and artificial agents, and their applications in different context, including healthcare, education, and personal use.
Daniel obtained his PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology at VU Amsterdam, investigating the perceptual and attentional effects of stimuli associated with threats and rewards. This foundation in cognitive psychology informs his current work on human-robot interaction, bringing an understanding of fundamental perceptual and emotional processes to questions about how people respond to artificial agents.
  Eddy van der Sman works at the intersection of behavioral science and AI-driven decision systems. He leads the development and governance of large-scale personalization and digital decisioning architectures within complex institutional environments, focusing on how AI is embedded in real organizational practices. He is also Chair of the Social & Economic Psychology Section of the Dutch Institute of Psychologists (NIP), connecting academic insight with practice and policy.
Dr. Mohammadreza Farrokhnia holds a Master’s degree in Physics Education and a PhD in Educational Technology. With over 15 years of experience as a physics teacher in Iran, he is currently an Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology at the University of Twente. He is dedicated to leveraging advanced digital technologies to transform educational practice. His research interests include computer-supported collaborative learning, adaptive learning environments, simulations, and educational games, with the aim of enriching learning experiences across educational levels. As a member of the HiNT sectorplan, he specifically focuses on preparing students to cope with the uncertainties emerging technologies create, enabling them to benefit from their potential while minimizing associated risks.
Iwan Wopereis (Msc) is a senior lecturer in the academic teacher training programme for primary education at the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands. In addition, he is an educational technologist and researcher affiliated with the AI and Data Literacy project within Npuls. He graduated as an instructional technologist from the University of Twente.
Laura Huiberts is an assistant professor at the department of Lifespan psychology of the Open Universiteit. Her expertise lies in Ecological Momentary Assessment research, combining wearable and mobile sensing data with momentary and day-to-day measures of wellbeing. Her research within the sector plan theme focuses on the impact of (banning) smartphone use on wellbeing, sleep and physical activity during adolescents’ daily routines.
Jaime Simons is the Creative Lab Technologist for The Playground and Laboratory for New Technologies (The Plant) within the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences at Maastricht University. Their artistic and curatorial work has been shown internationally, including the Canada Science and Technology Museum (CAN), Earth Sciences Museum (CAN), and MAAKLAB (NL), among others. Jaime’s current research is situated at the intersection of digital technology and cultural heritage, with a focus on the virtualization of intangible heritage, exploring natural environments through historic data, and imagining ways of using technology to dream for a more optimistic future.
Dr. Nafis Aziz Hasan is an assistant professor in the department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) specializing in the human and organizational effects of digitization in the Global South. Prior to joining the UvA, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. His articles have appeared in American Ethnologist, Science Technology and Human Values and South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, among other venues. Along with Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Nishant Shah, he is also the author of the open access book Overload, Creep, Excess: An Internet from India.