Human+ Team Members

Before starting his academic career, Ruud spent his childhood in and around the woods and floodplains of Elst. He was an underachiever in secondary school and was retained one year, but eventually managed to receive his high school diploma. After a BSc in in Social Work, he completed a BSc in Psychology (cum laude) and an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience at Utrecht University (NL). In 2016, he obtained his PhD cum laude from Tilburg University (NL). Before joining Utrecht University as an assistant professor, he travelled around the (academic) world as a postdoc at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), Bangor University (Wales), and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). His research and teaching focusses on social cognition in the age of the algorithm. Using a social neuroscience perspective he tries to answer the question how real interactions with people, robots, and AI, affect everyday social cognition? In his spare time, he is an avid reader, overenthusiastic hockey player, an still emerging boulderer, and an unapologetic Smiths enthusiast.

Fabiola is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Comparative Psychology and Affective Neuroscience Lab (CoPAN), at Leiden University. She works under the supervision of Mariska Kret and Ruud Hortensius. Fabiola is broadly fascinated by how the socio-affective behavior has evolved and will continue to evolve throughout history, from bacteria’s communication to contemporary artificial species. In her Ph.D. project, she is focusing on human-human physiological and behavioral synchrony and by what means these phenomena shape trust and cooperation in interactions. Together with Ruud, she is also working on honesty and trust in human-robot interaction and on investigating the robot’s physical features that elicit more prosocial behavior. In her spare time, Fabiola likes to practice yoga, listen to progressive rock and give love to her plants. You can find her soaked in a book or one of her thousand interests.

Co-supervised with Mariska Kret (Leiden University)

Ronja obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology followed by a Research Master’s degree in Social and Economic Psychology from Leiden University. Currently, she works as a PhD candidate at Utrecht University under the supervision of Dr. Ruud Hortensius. Throughout her academic journey, she developed an interest in the complex dynamics within and between groups. She conducted research on factors that promote ingroup cooperation while simultaneously potentially leading to conflict with an outgroup. During this research, she became intrigued by the subconscious mechanisms underlying social phenomena such as trust. As a result, she specialized further in physiological synchrony that arises during dyadic interactions. Additionally, she developed an affinity for using economic games to study social behavior. In her current Ph.D. research, she investigates the long-term effect of the presence of an artificial agent at home on the social dynamics of families using fNIRS. In my free time, she enjoys hiking, playing tennis, and reading.

Aline is originally coming from Rome. But apparently for her not “all road lead to Rome” since after high school, she decided to move away to complete a BSc in Psychology (with distinction) at Tilburg University. She is currently working as a student assistant at Utrecht University while completing the Social and Health Psychology Research MSc at the same university. As part of her thesis, she is working along with Ruud and Zsuzsa to shed some light on the underlying mechanisms that might explain why people believe in conspiracy theories and what role social media might play in it. Her interest in Psychology is manifold although her fascination with conspiracy theories (for research purposes only of course) is growing more and more, and after her MSc, she would like to pursue a PhD which ideally would go in that direction. In her free time, you will probably find her on endless walks, complaining about the Dutch weather, cooking way too much food and not knowing when to eat her leftovers.

Dorka completed her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology in Budapest (Hungary). She is currently a Social and Health Psychology research master’s student at Utrecht University. She first came across the subject of human-AI interaction during her exchange semester at Helsinki University (Finland), which she later tried to incorporate into her thesis on media-induced recovery through video games. Physiological measurements like EEG and EDA were another subject she had a strong interest in. Dorka is currently working on her research internship under Ruud’s supervision. She mainly focuses on setting up the recently delivered fNIRS device for future study by developing a lab protocol and carrying out the initial calibration measurements with a focus on the Theory of Mind network. W hen outside of the university, you most often find her at a local farm with sheep and goats or hiking in nature.

Hester finished her BSc Psychology at Utrecht University and quickly realized her interest in the human brain. After doing a minor in social neuroscience and writing her thesis on theory-of-mind and social robots with the use of fNIRS, she is now pursuing her studies in the Neuroscience and Cognition MSc programme. She decided to follow her internship under Ruud’s supervision in which she is investigating cognitive and affective empathy for social robots. During her spare time, you can find her at the rowing club, painting, or at a restaurant with her friends.