Hi, I’m Robert! I’m an Associate Professor of Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and Interpretability at Utrecht University, where I lead the NLTP team in the Department of Methodology, Statistics and Data Science.

My research focuses on machine learning, deep learning, and mechanistic interpretability, aiming to uncover the internal mechanisms of neural networks and understand how they transform learned representations into predictions and decisions.

I investigate these questions across a range of models, from controlled neural networks to large language models, with a particular emphasis on identifying which internal features play a causal role in shaping model behavior, rather than merely correlating with it.

Beyond my research, I am actively involved in academic leadership and interdisciplinary collaboration. I serve on the Steering Committee of the EWUU AI Hub and am a Co-Director of the AI & Data Science Research Center at Utrecht University, together with Mehdi Dastani and Jan Broersen. I also serve on the Advisory Board of the Utrecht AI Labs.

Within Utrecht University, I chair the Data Science and AI Taskforce in the Department of Methodology, Statistics and Data Science and co-coordinate the Utrecht NLP Hub (NLP@U).

For a more detailed view of my research, you may want to take a look at my Google Scholar.

News & Updates

• November 2026 — We had the NLP@U period meeting to discuss recent developments in the field, the use of GenAI in research, and emerging research ideas.
• October 2026 — Together with Ruurd Kuiper, we co-organized the Alternative Architectures and Paradigms (AAP) Workshop, co-located with INLG 2026 in Utrecht, to explore next-generation architectures for NLG beyond traditional autoregressive Transformers.
• October 2026 — Our paper, BYOD: Build Your Own DLM – Efficient Autoregressive-to-Diffusion Language Model Conversion, with Ruurd Kuiper, is now available on arXiv.
• October 2026 — I have been appointed Director of the Applied Data Science Research Community at Utrecht University.
• September 2026 — Congratulations to my PhD, Dr. Hadi Mohammadi on successfully defending his thesis on Explainable Natural Language Processing for Social Sciences! It was a pleasure to be part of your supervision team.
• September 2026 — Maria Mouratidi started her PhD research on AI and causal modeling to improve reading education, under my co-supervision.
• September 2026 — Artur Aleixo started his PhD research at Tilburg University on multimodal learning for mental health, resilience, and wellbeing, under my co-supervision.
• June 2026 — Congratulations to my PhD, Dr. Jelle Teijema on successfully defending his thesis on Reproducible and Explainable Active Learning for Systematic Reviews! It was a pleasure to be part of your supervision team.