News Archive

A chronological record of past announcements, publications, talks, and other significant events.

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Sep 6, 2026 News

Ben Ferringa Impact Award 2026 (University-wide)

After receiving the Faculty of Science and Engineering Impact Award 2025 (Student Category), Thijs van der Laan was awarded the Ben Feringa Impact Award 2026 (Student Thesis Category) at the University of Groningen for his thesis on next-word prediction for people with aphasia. The award recognizes research with strong potential for societal impact. Supervised by me, this thesis explored how language technology can support communication in aphasia and served as a pilot study for my NWO-funded project on facilitating word-finding through language technology.

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May 1, 2026 News

FSE Impact Award 2025

Congratulations to my student, who received the Faculty of Science and Engineering Impact Award 2025 (Student Category) at the University of Groningen for a thesis project on next-word prediction to support people with aphasia. The award recognizes research with strong potential to generate societal impact. The project demonstrated how language technology can enhance communication support for people with aphasia and served as a pilot study for my NWO-funded project on facilitating word-finding through language technology.

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Jul 26, 2026 Grant

NWO-VENI Grant Awarded

Excited to share that I have been awarded a VENI Grant (320.000€) by the NWO (Dutch Research Council) to advance my research. For this project, I will use large language models to create a next-word prediction system that understands the context of real-time communication and can suggest appropriate words when individuals with speech and language impairment (due to brain damage, e.g., aphasia) experience difficulties in finding words (like the tip-of-the-tongue feeling).