In this round, NWO is honouring 149 researchers from the following research domains: Science (ENW), Applied and Engineering Sciences (AES), Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH), and Healthcare Research and Development (ZonMw).

The UvA laureates

Amsterdam Law School

• Dr João Quintais (Institute for Information Law): Generative AI Content Moderation: Regulation for Fundamental Rights
  Quintais’s project will explore how EU law addresses the moderation of problematic generative AI (GenAI) content, aiming to protect freedom of expression. As tools like ChatGPT and Gemini raise risks such as disinformation and censorship, existing EU laws remain fragmented and unclear. Quintais will use legal analysis, empirical research, and normative theory to examine current regulation, provider practices, and foundational principles. By bridging gaps between platform and AI law, the project seeks to guide future regulation through a principled, rights-respecting framework. Its contributions include policy recommendations, novel empirical tools, and an interdisciplinary agenda for regulating GenAI content in the EU.
   

• Dr Mahsa Shabani (Law Centre for Health and Life): Fairness in data-driven medical technologies: Solidifying regulatory oversight based on a multidimensional conception of fairness
  Artificial intelligence and genomic technologies are transforming healthcare, offering powerful tools for diagnosis and treatment. However, these innovations often fail to fairly serve diverse populations due to lack of inclusivity. Shabani’s project aims to develop a comprehensive fairness framework for medical AI and genomics, considering ethical, legal, and social factors. By engaging stakeholders—including patients, clinicians, and policymakers—Shabani will propose regulatory solutions to ensure equitable healthcare technology. Her findings will help create guidelines for fair and inclusive AI, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of background, benefit from medical advancements in a responsible and just manner.
   

• Dr Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh (Amsterdam Centre for International Law): Weaving tomorrow’s justice: Intergenerational equity and the evolution of general principles in international law
  Our planet faces crises like climate change that span multiple generations. International law struggles to tackle such long-term problems. Wewerinke-Singh will explore how ‘intergenerational equity’—the idea that present generations owe legal duties to future generations—might be recognised as a binding legal principle at the international level. Analysing sources from a wide range of legal traditions, including indigenous systems, she will test whether this norm meets legal criteria to become a ‘general principle’. The findings and methods could help international law become more inclusive and capable of confronting today’s environmental challenges.

Society & Behaviour

• Dr Rowan Arundel (Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research): The great (un)equaliser: How housing systems reshape inequalities across societies [HOU-EQUAL]
  In his project, Arundel will deliver a ‘big-picture’ assessment of the role of housing in inequality across societies. Paramount to wealth, wellbeing, security and life-course transitions, housing is central to structuring inequalities. Its role, however, varies drastically, from an equalising force to chief driver of inequality. This is dependent on the housing system: the institutional, political, economic and cultural context shaping housing provision and consumption. HOU-EQUAL will confront how housing systems mitigate or amplify socio-economic inequalities through the distribution of housing (dis)advantages. Arundel’s interdisciplinary, comparative project will examine macro-level dynamics across EU national/urban contexts alongside micro-level outcomes within five contrasting cases (Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, Spain, Czechia).
   

• Dr Cody Hochstenbach (Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research): DWELLWELL: Towards a political economy of housing and health
  Housing has a major impact on health: where you live matters a lot. Most research, however, only looks at the housing unit itself. Housing policies and housing systems are ignored. Hochstenbach’s project will address this, by developing a political-economic understanding of housing’s impact on health. Simply put, the project will address how housing policies and housing systems can make people sick and generate health inequalities. Hochstenbach will use comparative and longitudinal quantitative methods, as well as in-depth ethnographic fieldwork with key stakeholders. He will combine cross-European comparisons with a focus on the Netherlands and United Kingdom. The project will contribute to equity in housing and health.
   

• Dr Eftychia Stamkou (Psychology Research Institute): Artful Minds, Inclusive Hearts: Cultivating children’s prosocial growth through performing arts
  Young children instinctively engage with performing arts—fixate on their mother’s singing, dance to music, and immerse themselves in make-believe worlds. Why does art have such a strong appeal on the developing mind? And how can we study art with rigorous science without losing its complexity? Stamkou’s project proposes that art disrupts default modes of feeling, acting, and thinking, opening pathways to outgroup prosociality that persist beyond the artistic encounter. By studying real art performances and lab-based art shows, and using child-friendly, cutting-edge methods, Stamkou will examine how art uniquely makes children form more inclusive, empathetic connections with distant others.
   

• Dr Claire Stevenson (Psychology Research Institute): How smart is AI really? Methods for investigating intelligence in humans and AI
  AI-models appear to be rapidly developing human-like intelligence. For both scientists and the broader public, an urgent question is “How smart is AI currently and how intelligent will it become?”. However, we do not know because current methods for evaluating intelligence in people are not suitable for AI and vice versa due to inherent differences in learning, memory, and processing between these systems. Stevenson’s project will develop the necessary methods to study how smart AI-models are compared to people, now and in the future, and shed light on how to safely utilise AI in our daily lives.

Faculty of Science

• Dr Joe Callingham (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy/ASTRON): Radio Stars and Exoplanets: Creating space weather reports for distant worlds
  Understanding whether exoplanets can support life is a fundamental goal in astronomy. Space weather—such as magnetic fields and plasma eruptions from stars—plays a crucial role in determining whether planets can retain their atmospheres under the influence of stellar activity. Callingham's project focuses on detecting exoplanets and plasma eruptions from stars through their radio emissions. He will use this information to create the first space weather reports for other worlds—an essential step in the complex puzzle of finding habitable planets.
   

• Dr Iris Groen (Informatics Institute): BrainShorts: Identifying neural mechanisms of dynamic video perception with deep learning
  Our visual brain has no trouble extracting meaning from a short video, while advanced AI techniques require a lot of computing power for the same feat. What calculations and clever tricks does the brain use to achieve this? Groen’s project will answer this question by first collecting high-resolution brain measurements from the video-watching brain and then mimicking these with deep learning models that we enrich with various biological information processing principles. By directly comparing models with and without brain-inspired computations, Groen will identify key biological processing principles, facilitating more energy-efficient AI.
   

• Dr André Kuhn (Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences): Navigating a complex world: Deciphering a mechanism of early signal integration in plants
  Plants constantly face threats of drought, soil salination and disease, which intensify due to climate change. Lacking motility and a central nervous system, plants must detect and react to these threats through fast, cell-based signal processing. How do plants process numerous signals fast enough to mitigate stress? Preliminary findings show that different signals can rapidly regulate the same proteins by phosphorylation. This indicates response mechanisms that share signal integrator proteins. How, where and why this integration happens is unknown. Kuhn’s project will elucidate an unknown mechanism that allows plants to respond rapidly to several co-occurring signals in a coordinated manner.
   

• Dr Sara Magliacane (Informatics Institute): CANES: a CAusal NEuro-Symbolic approach to integrating perception and abstract reasoning
  Current AI systems often make decisions in ways that people don’t understand. This potentially creates mistrust, unfairness and brittleness of these systems to changes. A solution is to build systems that learn and use understandable concepts. This requires annotators to label large amounts of data, which is tedious and expensive. Worse, even with all these annotations, AI models can still learn the wrong concepts! Magliacane will develop new methods that learn understandable concepts correctly with a high probability from few annotations. She will also use available knowledge on the interactions between the concepts and information on past decisions.
   

• Dr Pascal Mettes (Informatics Institute): HyperVision: Hyperbolic Computer Vision
  Neural networks excel at recognising what happens in images but suffer from a crucial blind spot: they fail to correctly represent hierarchies. Hierarchies are key structures in computer vision, describing how visual data and semantics are organised. The mismatch with hierarchies has a geometric reason: modern networks are Euclidean, while hierarchies have a hyperbolic nature. To overcome this fundamental problem, Mettes’ project proposes to redefine and rebuild neural networks for computer vision using hyperbolic geometry, with the promise of addressing critical limitations of today’s neural networks.
   

• Dr Richard Ott (Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics): HUMBOLDT—High resolUtion Mountain Building of the COLombian AnDes through Time
  Mountains are known as biodiversity hotspots, yet what drives the extraordinary diversity of many mountain ranges remains a profound mystery. Ott’s project will explore whether the—geologically speaking—rapid rise of mountain ranges acts as a catalyst for increased biodiversity. This understanding is vital for establishing conservation priorities. Ott’s project will focus on the Northern Andes—the world’s most biodiverse mountain range—and collects data to reconstruct their rise over time. Ott will analyse how the speed and variability of mountain formation impact biodiversity. This will reveal how dynamic geological processes influence the evolution and abundance of life.
   

• Dr Sebastian Pfeilmeier (Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences): Cell Type-Specific Disease Resistance Against Vascular Xanthomonas Plant Pathogens (XANTHORESIST)
  Plants have an immune system that detects and responds to pathogens, yet many crops are susceptible to infections. Cabbage and related vegetables, for instance, are particularly vulnerable to Xanthomonas bacteria. These bacteria enter through leaf water pores and spread through the plant’s vasculature, causing Black Rot disease. The mechanisms by which plant cells recognise Xanthomonas and initiate defence responses remain unclear. Pfeilmeier’s project aims to identify key immune processes during the early stages of infection, providing new insights that can be applied to develop disease resistant crops.
   

• Dr Vítor Vasconcelos (Informatics Institute): ROOTS: Resilient outcomes from organic transitions in society
  Vasconcelos’s project explores how people can be supported in making more sustainable choices—like installing solar panels or eating less meat—without fuelling social division. To understand how opinions and behaviours shift, he will collect and analyze large datasets from across Europe and the US. These insights will feed into computer models that test which climate policies are most effective, and under what conditions they might unintentionally increase tensions between groups. Vasconcelos’s project will work closely with societal partners to ensure that climate measures not only support sustainability but also strengthen social cohesion.
   

• Dr Jianbo Zhang (Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences): iGuMI: An infant Gut-Microbe-Immune-on-a-chip model to decipher crosstalk between bacterial colonisation, mucosal barrier integrity and macrophage function in early life
  The first 1000 days of life are crucial for microbiome development, immune system formation and long-term health. However, yet we still lack a full understanding of how intestinal bacteria shape immunity. Zhang’s project aims to develop a novel miniature gut-microbe-immune-on-a-chip (iGuMI) model that mimics the infant gut to unravel how "good" andc"bad" bacterial colonisation influence infant intestinal function and immune development, identify key bacterial species and metabolites that drive these effects. Ultimately, this research will inform the development of new interventions (probiotics or drugs) to boost infant immune health, prevent infections, and improve pediatric medicine.
   

• Dr Jeroen Zuiddam (Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics): Asymptotic spectra in mathematics and computation
  What is the cost of a task when performed many times? This question lies at the core of central problems in mathematics, computer science, and quantum information—such as fast matrix multiplication, Shannon capacity, and quantum entanglement transformations. Zuiddam’s project will advance the theory of asymptotic spectra, a powerful new approach that reveals deep structure in these problems across disciplines. By developing this theory and applying it to direct-sum problems, Zuiddam aims to overcome long-standing barriers through novel methods from algebra, topology, combinatorics, and optimisation.

Faculty of Medicine (Amsterdam UMC, AMC location)

• Dr Jan-Willem van Dalen: Clever use of blood pressure lowering medication for dementia prevention
  High blood pressure is an important risk factor for dementia. Blood pressure-lowering therapy reduces this risk. Studies suggest that individuals who use specific types of blood pressure-lowering medications develop dementia 10-35% less often than those using other types. These different medication types are widely used. Many dementia cases may be prevented if only dementia-reducing types would be prescribed. However, proving this through a clinical study is challenging, as it would require over ten thousand individuals to participate many years. Van Dalen’s project uses advanced research techniques and large-scale existing datasets to identify which blood pressure-lowering medications are best for preventing dementia.
   

• Dr Harsha Devalla: How do genetic differences influence heart rate? Decoding the neuro-cardiac dialogue
  Abnormal heart rate increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and death. Hundreds of DNA regions have been linked to heart rate, but their biological functions remain undiscovered. Devalla’s project will use innovative human stem cell-derived systems. By combining heart pacemaker cells (which generate the heartbeat) and autonomic nerve cells (which speed up or slow down the rhythm), the team will aim to identify processes that influence the electrical activity of heart cells. The project will improve understanding of how genetics determine heart function, contributing to the development of effective treatments for heart rhythm disorders.
   

• Dr Iosifina Foskolou: Deciphering the metabolic-epitranscriptomic nexus to optimise T-cell-based cancer immunotherapies
  T-cells are the soldiers of the immune system: they recognise and fight viruses and cancer cells to keep us healthy. T-cells can be engineered in the lab to attack cancers that the immune system doesn’t recognise. This therapy works well for blood cancers, but is less successful against solid tumours, inside of which normal T-cells don’t get enough nutrients and oxygen. Foskolou’s project aims to improve these therapies by creating T-cells that use alternative energy sources to remain active within solid tumours. Researchers believe that this approach can unlock the full potential of T-cells and thus help more patients.
   

• Dr Vanessa Harris: Can common bacteria protect babies from diarrheal disease and drug resistance?
  Babies in low-income countries often suffer from serious diarrheal illnesses and infections that don’t respond to antibiotics. Harris’s research shows that a common gut bacterium, E coli, increases in babies after their first year of life and contributes to antimicrobial resistance in low-income settings. Using data from 1,600 African infants, clinical studies, and computer models, the her project will explore how managing E. coli in the gut could reduce diarrheal illness and antibiotic drug resistance— helping to create new microbiome-based treatments for at-risk babies.
   

• Dr Marten Hoeksema: MAF matters: fine-tuning macrophage inflammatory responses (MAFMAC)
  Macrophages are crucial immune cells present in all our tissues. Hoeksema’s preliminary data shows that binding of MAF transcription factors to the DNA is needed for inflammatory gene activation in macrophages. However, their precise role in turning on pro-inflammatory gene programs remains unclear. In her project, Hoeksema will identify which MAF proteins drive excessive inflammation and how they exert their functions. This will enable precise targeting of MAF proteins to control macrophage responses and counteract inflammatory disease.
   

• Dr Elseline Hoekzema: Mind the Mother: A spotlight on the maternal brain and hidden disorders of maternal mental health
  Previous research has shown that pregnancy renders changes in brain structure and function, which relate to mother-infant bonding. Hoekzema’s project will address key gaps in knowledge related to peripartum brain changes. First, she will investigate the brain in women suffering from mother-infant bonding disorders, serious postpartum conditions that can severely impact both mother and child but for which the neural bases are not known yet. In addition, she will compare women's pregnancy-induced neuroplasticity with brain changes in rodents and monkeys. Finally, she will investigate the impact of a second pregnancy on a woman’s brain and her neural responses to infants.
   

• Dr Anouk Schrantee: Neurotransmitters and brain networks: key to psychiatric treatment
  Mental health disorders affect nearly 1 billion people worldwide, yet current treatments, like pharmacotherapy and neuromodulation, often have limited success and significant side effects. Schrantee’s project investigates how brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) influence communication networks in the brain, a key factor in these disorders. Using advanced brain imaging techniques, Schrantee will map how these chemicals shape brain connections in healthy individuals and those with conditions like ADHD, OCD, and depression. By understanding how medications and brain stimulation treatments affect these chemical networks, this research could lead to more precise and personalized mental health treatments.
   

• Dr Rachel Thijssen: Targeting the Achilles heel of leukaemia cells
  Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a devastating form of blood cancer. Despite the introduction of venetoclax, a promising anti-cancer drug, many patients experience relapse during treatment. Thijssen’s project will use cutting-edge single-cell techniques to analyse individual leukaemia cells and uncover how they survive therapy. The goal is to determine whether resistant cells switch to an alternative survival pathway—an Achilles' heel that could be exploited. Identifying these escape routes may lead to a powerful combination therapy, enhancing venetoclax’s effects and providing a more effective, long-lasting treatment for AML patients.
   

• Dr Jorien Treur: Harnessing triangulation to uncover next-gen risk factors for mental health problems
  Mental health disorders are a major global health issue, and there's an urgent need to understand how modern behaviours like vaping and sedentary lifestyles might cause these problems. Traditional studies can't always answer such questions, so researchers use advanced methods like genetic analyses and hypothetical trial simulations. However, these methods also have their limitations and can't provide definitive answers alone. To address this, the concept of "triangulation" is used, combining multiple methods to minimize biases. Treur’s project aims to refine triangulation techniques and apply them to determine if vaping and sedentary behaviour impact mental health, utilising diverse methods and datasets.