Tag: postdoc

Postdoc update – December 2025

Six months since my last update. The pace hasn’t slowed. Here’s what I’ve been up to and what’s on the horizon for the next six months or so. But first, a very welcome December break. Happy holidays, dear reader.

Happenings

People’s Compute at Goldsmiths: On September 18, I presented my research agenda, “People’s Compute: Design and the Politics of AI Infrastructures,” at the Politics of AI symposium at Goldsmiths, University of London. Many thanks to Dan McQuillan, Fieke Jansen, Jo Lindsay Walton, and Pat Brody for the invitation and for putting together such a thought-provoking program. Read the transcript.

Digital Autonomy Unconference: On October 3, I attended the Digital Autonomy Unconference in Amsterdam, which was organized in collaboration with Code for NL and focused on enhancing digital autonomy within Dutch public institutions. The Digital Autonomy Competence Center was also launched at this event, for which I serve as a research associate. Read the news item.

Master’s Graduation Projects: Two more of my students have graduated. Ameya Sawant completed a project about designer autonomy and GenAI (August 29, with Fernando Secomandi as chair). David Mieras completed a project about the responsible use of AI in policy preparation (October 28, with Lianne Simonse as chair).

Personal Grant: I mentioned going for a personal grant the last time around. Unfortunately, I did not advance to the final round. However, I did receive some useful feedback and will try again next year. Onwards and upwards.

Designing Responsible AI: Sara Colombo, Francesca Mauri, and I ran the second iteration of our master’s elective course, which builds on responsible research and innovation, value-sensitive design, and design fiction. See the course description here. A more detailed write-up of how the course works is forthcoming.

International Contestable AI Workshop: On November 18, I had the pleasure of hosting a delegation from Denmark and the UK for a full-day workshop about Contestable AI at TU Delft. Read the report.

Enterprise UX: On November 21, I delivered an invited talk titled “Reclaiming Autonomy: Designing AI-Enhanced Work Tools That Empower Users” at the Enterprise UX conference in Amersfoort. Thanks to Peter Boersma for the invitation. The references to Office Space and Luddism were surprisingly well-received. Read the transcript.

Your difficult design doctor, holding forth at Enterprise UX.

NIAS Workshop: I participated in a workshop at NIAS on November 26-27, exploring permacomputing, server collectives, and networks of consent. Incredibly inspiring, it has given me many new ideas for approaching my own ongoing research. Many thanks to John Boy for the invitation. View the event page.

Stop the Cuts (continued): The fight against cuts to higher education continues. On December 9 we once again went on strike and I joined the demonstration in Amsterdam with over 7,000 participants. Our far-right government may have fallen, but the cuts remain on the table. Now is the time to maintain pressure on the parties forming a government. If you work in academia and want to act, join a union (Aob or FNV) and sign up for the WOinActie newsletter.

Advisory Today, Co-Decisive Tomorrow? A paper based on a year-long participant observation of a smart city project in Amsterdam, co-authored with Mike de Kreek, Tessa Steenkamp, and Martijn de Waal (part of the Human Values for Smarter Cities project), has been accepted for the 2026 Participatory Design Conference. Very pleased about that one. A preprint will be up once we submit the final camera-ready version, I think.

ThingsCon TH/NGS: At this year’s ThingsCon conference on December 12, Fieke Jansen, Sunjoo Lee, Lena Trotereau, and I ran a workshop titled “From Mud to Models” exploring regenerative futures for community AI. Thanks to Iskander Smit for bringing us together. A report is forthcoming.

Participants building clocks powered by mud batteries at our ThingsCon workshop.

Open Letter on AI Policy: I was part of the supporting team for an open letter calling on Dutch politicians to develop a national AI policy that promotes social progress. A special thanks goes out to Cristina Zaga for taking the initiative and leading the charge on this one, but also to the core team members Roel Dobbe, Iris van Rooij, Lilian de Jong, Wouter Nieuwenhuizen, Marcela Suarez, Wiep Hamstra, and Olivia Guest, and the supporting team that myself was part of Felienne Hermans, Mark D., Eelco Herder, Emile van Bergen, Siri Beerends, Nolen Gertz, Paul Peters, Gerry McGovern, Kars Alfrink, and Jelle van der Ster. Sign and share the letter here.

On deck

Looking ahead to the new year, I have several writing projects to complete: one chapter on contestability for an edited volume on the philosophy of engineering, and another chapter for an edited volume on community AI.

I will be wrapping up my duties as associate chair for the CHI 2026 design subcommittee. And I will also serve as associate chair for the DIS 2026 artifacts & systems subcommittee.

I will do the analysis and write-up of a field evaluation of the Vision Model Macroscope prototype (also part of the aforementioned Human Values for Smarter Cities project). I am also providing support on several other papers that will hopefully find their way into venues such as FAccT, DIS, and elsewhere.

Mockup of the Vision Model Macroscope prototype.

Finally, I am part of several small grant applications exploring topics that include the potential of computational argumentation techniques to enable more interactive implementations of contestable AI, as well as contestability in digital systems used for evidence management in international criminal justice.

That’s most of it, although not all of it, but this has gotten way too long already. Thanks for reading this far, if you have, and best wishes for 2026.

Postdoc update – July 2025

I am over one year into my postdoc at TU Delft. Where did the time go? By way of an annual report, here’s a rundown of my most notable outputs and activities since the previous update from June 2024. And also, some notes on what I am up to now.

Happenings

Participatory AI and ML Engineering: On 13 February 2024 at a Human Values for Smarter Cities meeting and on 11 June 2024 at a Cities Coalition for Digital Rights meeting, I presented a talk on participatory AI and ML engineering (blogged here). This has since evolved into a study I am currently running with the working title “Vision Model Macroscope.” We are designing, building, and evaluating an interface that allows municipal workers to understand and debate value-laden technical decisions made by machine learning engineers in the construction of camera vehicles. For the design, I am collaborating with CLEVER°FRANKE. The study is part of the Human Values for Smarter Cities projected headed up by the Civic Interaction Design group at AUAS.

Envisioning Contestability Loops: My article “Envisioning Contestability Loops: Evaluating the Agonistic Arena as a Generative Metaphor for Public AI” (with Ianus Keller, Mireia Yurrita Semperena, Denis Bulygin, Gerd Kortuem, and Neelke Doorn) was published in She Ji on 17 June 2024. (I had already published the infographic “Contestability Loops for Public AI,” which the article revolves around, on 17 April 2024.) Later in the year, on 5 September 2024, I ran the workshop that the study builds on as a ThingsCon Salon. And on 27 September 2024, I presented the article at Lawtomation Days in Madrid, Spain, as part of the panel “Methods in law and technology research: inter- and cross-disciplinary challenges and opportunities,” chaired by Kostina Prifti (slides). (Also, John Thackara said nice things about the article online.)

Contestability Loops for Public AI infographic
Envisioning Contestability Loops workshop at ThingsCon Salon in progress.

Democratizing AI Through Continuous Adaptability: I presented on “Democratizing AI Through Continuous Adaptability: The Role of DevOps” at the TILTing Perspectives 2024 panel “The mutual shaping of democratic practices & AI,” which was chaired and moderated by Merel Noorman on 14 July 2024. I later reprised this talk at NWO ICT.OPEN on 16 April 2025 as part of the track “Human-Computer Interaction and Societal Impact in the Netherlands,” chaired by Armağan Karahanoğlu and Max Birk (PDF of slides).

From Stem to Stern: I was part of the organizing team of the CSCW 2024 workshop “From Stem to Stern: Contestability Along AI Value Chains,” which took place as a hybrid one-day session on 9 November 2024. I blogged a summary and some takeaways of the workshop here. Shoutout to Agathe Balayn and Yulu Pi for leading this endeavor.

Contestable AI Talks: I was invited to speak on my PhD research at various meetings and events organized by studios, agencies, consultancies, schools, and public sector organizations. On 3 September 2024, at the data design agency CLEVER°FRANKE (slides). On 10 January 2025, at the University of Utrecht Computational Sociology group. On 19 February 2025, at digital ethics consultancy The Green Land (slides). On 6 March 2024, at Communication and Multimedia Design Amsterdam (slides). And on 17 March 2025, at the Advisory Board on Open Government and Information Management.

Designing Responsible AI: Over the course of 2024, Sara Colombo, Francesca Mauri, and I developed and taught for the first time a new Integrated Product Design master’s elective, “Designing Responsible AI” (course description). Later, on 28 March 2025, I was invited by my colleagues Alessandro Bozzon and Carlo van der Valk to give a single-morning interactive lecture on part of the same content at the course AI Products and Services (slides).

Books that represent the range of theory covered in the course “Designing Responsible AI.”

Stop the Cuts: On 2 July 2024, a far-right government was sworn in in the Netherlands (it has since fallen). They intended to cut funding to education by €2 billion. A coalition of researchers, teachers, students, and others organized to protest and strike in response. I was present at several of these actions: The alternative opening of the academic year in Utrecht on 2 September 2024. Local walkouts on 14 November 2024 (I participated in Utrecht). Mass demonstration in The Hague on 25 November 2024. Local actions on 11 December 2024 (I participated in Delft). And finally, for now at least, on 24 April 2025, at the Delft edition of the nationwide relay strike. If you read this, work in academia, and want to act, join a union (I am a member of the AOb), and sign up for the WOinActie newsletter.

End of the march during the 24 April 2025 strike in Delft.

Panels: Over the past months, I was a panelist at several events. On 22 October 2024, at the Design & AI Symposium as part of the panel “Evolving Perspectives on AI and Design,” together with Iohanna Nicenboim and Jesse Benjamin, moderated by Mathias Funk (blog post). On 13 December 2024 at TH/NGS as part of the panel “Rethink Design: Book Launch and Panel Discussion on Designing With AI” chaired by Roy Bendor (video). On 12 March 2025, at the panel “Inclusive AI: Approaches to Digital Inclusion,” chaired by Nazli Cila and Taylor Stone.

Slide I used during my panel contribution at the Design & AI symposium.

Design for Human Autonomy: I was part of several activities organized by the Delft Design for Values institute related to their annual theme of autonomy (led by Michael Klenk). I was a panelist on 15 October 2024 during the kick-off event (blog post). I wrote the section on designing AI for autonomy for the white paper edited by Udo Pesch (preprint). And during the closing symposium, master’s graduation student Ameya Sawant, whom I am coaching (with Fernando Secomandi acting as chair), was honored as a finalist in the thesis competition.

Master Graduation Students: Four master students that I coached during their thesis projects graduated, which between them explored technology’s role in society through AI-mediated civic engagement, generative AI implementation in public services, experimental approaches to AI trustworthiness, and urban environmental sensing—Nina te Groen (with Achilleas Psyilidis as chair), Romée Postma (with Roy Bendor), Eline Oei (with Giulia Calabretta), and Jim Blom (with Tomasz Jaskiewicz).

Architecting for Contestability: On 22 November 2025, I ran a single-day workshop about contestability for government-employed ICT architects participating in the Digital Design & Architecture course offered by the University of Twente, on invitation from Marijn Janssen (slides).

Qualitative Design Research: On 17 December 2024, I delivered a lecture on qualitative design research for the course Empirical Design Research, on invitation from my colleague Himanshu Verma (slides). Later, on 22 April 2025, I delivered a follow-up in the form of a lecture on reflexive thematic analysis for the course Product Futures Studio, coordinated by Holly McQuillan (slides).

Democratic Generative Things: On 6 June 2025 I joined the ThingsCon unconference to discuss my contribution to the RIOT report, “Embodied AI and collective power: Designing democratic generative things” (preprint). The report was edited by edited by Andrea Krajewski and Iskander Smit.

Me, holding forth during the ThingsCon RIOT unconference.

Learning Experience Design: I delivered the closing invited talk at LXDCON on 12 June 2025, reflecting on the impact of GenAI on the fields of education and design for learning (slides). Many thanks to Niels Floor for the invitation.

People’s Compute: I published a preprint of my position paper “People’s Compute: Design and the Politics of AI Infrastructures” over at OSF on 14 April 2025. I emailed it to peers and received over a dozen encouraging responses. It was also somehow picked up by Evgeny Morozov’s The Syllabus with some nice commentary attached.

On deck

So what am I up to at the moment? Keeping nice and busy.

  • I am co-authoring several articles, papers, and book chapters on topics including workplace automation, AI transparency, contestability in engineering, AI design and regulation, computational argumentation, explainable and participatory AI, and AI infrastructure politics. I do hope at least some of these will see the light of day in the coming months.
  • I am preparing a personal grant application that builds on the vision laid out in People’s Compute.
  • I will be delivering an invited talk at Enterprise UX on 21 November 2025.
  • I am acting as a scientific advisor to a center that is currently being established, which focuses on increasing digital autonomy within Dutch government institutions.
  • I will be co-teaching Designing Responsible AI again in Q1 of the next academic year.
  • I’ll serve as an associate chair on the CHI 2026 design subcommittee.
  • And I have signed up to begin our university’s teaching qualification certification.

Whew. That’s it. Thanks for reading (skimming?) if you’ve made it all the way to the end. I will try to circle back and do another update, maybe a little sooner than this one, say in six months’ time.