Category Archives: Accolade

Anders Giovanni Møller defends his PhD: “AI in Modern Society: From computational methods to societal consequences”

Big congratulations to Anders for successfully defending his PhD thesis on how AI is changing Computational Social Science and the Web. The Committee was composed by Elisa Mekler, Robert West, and Johannes Bjerva. His very proud supervisor is Luca Aiello.

During his three years with NERDS, Anders has published 6 papers in the areas NLP and CSS, pioneering topics such as synthetic data generation with LLMs and AI persuasion. His graduation officially concludes the COCOONS project.

Anders has now started a job in the industry as AI Lead of Polaris, in Copenhagen.

In bocca al lupo, Anders!

Jonas Juul wins two grants for maritime-focused network science research

Orient’s Foundation and the Danish Maritime Foundation have decided to fund Jonas Juul’s research with a total amount of DKK 735.000 (€100,000.)

In the 18-month project, Jonas Juul will study the dynamics of growing and changing networks, developing new statistical tools to quantify how networks grow. The project will be conducted in coordination with the major Danish shipping company NORDEN.

We are excited that the maritime industry and maritime foundations have decided to board our network science journey.

Congratulations to you Jonas. We wish you fair winds and smooth sailing for the work ahead.

An AI-generated network of ships! (Created with Microsoft Copilot)

An AI-generated network of ships! (Created with Microsoft Copilot)

NERDS win Innoexplorer Grant!

Michael Szell, supported by Anastassia Vybornova and Manuel Knepper, have won a 1-year “Innoexplorer” grant by the Innovation Fund Denmark, of DKK 1.4 million (~EUR 188,000), for a project to turn raw bicycle network algorithms into polished software. Congratulations to the team of Michael, Manuel and Anastassia! 🥳

The project Bicycle network planning for a greener future made in Denmark: From network growth algorithms to user-friendly planning software has two goals: 1) take existing algorithms from our bicycle network research that we developed in the past years, and turn them into software that is usable by urban planners, 2) visualize the solutions on a web platform to guide urban planners on their usage. Innoexplorer in general aims to close the gap between research and policy with targeted short-term funding, to arrive at commercially viability. This easy applicability is also exactly what our bicycle network research was lacking so far.

The project will hire 2 people for one year: A research software engineer, and a web developer. We are already in the process of hiring our existing visitor Manuel Knepper for the first position, to start from January 2026. The web developer is planned to start from March 2026. Further, the project will be supported by Anastassia Vybornova, who has herself developed several of the algorithms, and by two external urbanism / visualization experts. We hope that the Innovation Fund’s support will ultimately enable more people to enjoy the benefits of cycling!

Vedran wins Independent Research Fund Denmark Grant!

As reported on ITU’s frontpage, Vedran Sekara has just won an Independent Research Fund Denmark grant (a “DFF 1”) of DKK 3.1 million (~EUR 415,000) for a project to understand how climate change affects our collective behaviour – especially our movement patterns. Congratulations Vedran for this “big catch”! 🥳

The project ClimateAdapt will work with large volumes of anonymised GPS data from countries like the US and countries in Europe. These datasets reveal how millions of people move through their daily lives – working, shopping, doing social activities. By matching these movement patterns with local climate events such as heatwaves, cloudbursts, and changing humidity levels, Vedran and his team aim to map out how behaviour changes. Read more in the ITU news.

Vedran’s ClimateAdapt project will soon open calls for PhDs/Postdocs.. stay tuned!

Jonas Juul wins the H.C. Ørsted Research Talent Prize

On August 14 2025, our Jonas Juul was awarded the 2025 H.C. Ørsted Research Talent Prize.

Every year, the H.C. Ørsted society celebrates Danish physicist and father of electromagnetism H.C. Ørsted’s birthday with a grand party in Rudkøbing Langeland. At the party, the society hands out two prizes to talented researchers. This year, Jonas received one of these prizes in recognition of his outstanding research, its societal impact, and its potential for addressing security threats such as misinformation and epidemics.

At the party, Jonas was celebrated along with Nobel Prize winner Professor Morten Meldal (University of Copenhagen), who was awarded the main H.C. Ørsted Research Prize, Associate Professor Luisa Sinischalchi (Technical University of Denmark), who won the other H.C. Ørsted Research Talent prize, and several university students and school pupils who won monetary awards in recognition of excellence.

Congratulations, Jonas!

ITU also wrote about Jonas’ award here: https://en.itu.dk/About-ITU/Press/News-from-ITU/2025/Jonas-Juul-receives-the-HC-Orsted-Research-Talent-Award-2025

Jonas receiving the prize

Photo credit: Vedran Sekara

Jonas Juul is a new member of the Danish Young Academy

The Danish Young Academy is a scientific academy for talented young researchers in Denmark under the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters. This year, 9 new members – one of them our Jonas – join the Young Academy the purpose of which is to strengthen Danish basic research and interdisciplinarity. According to the Young Academy, all members are “prominent profiles with strong international experiences and interesting views on research and society.”

Jonas provides more of his thoughts here: https://en.itu.dk/About-ITU/Press/News-from-ITU/2025/Jonas-Juul-has-been-accepted-into-the-Young-Academy

Jonas at the Young Academy’s Summer Party. The party took place at the Carlsberg Academy and was the first official event with the new Young Academy cohort participating.

Ane defends her PhD: Network analysis of Denmark’s bicycle infrastructure

Big congratulations to Dr. Ane Rahbek Vierø – she defended her thesis yesterday, on Network Analysis of Denmark’s Bicycle Infrastructure: Data & Infrastructure for All? 🥳 🎓 We are proud about Ane’s brilliant scientific accomplishments that have also started to have a big practical impact on bicycle network planning nationally and internationally.

Supervisor: Michael Szell
Committee: Michele Coscia, Trine Agervig Carstensen, Trivik Verma

Read her thesis here: https://en.itu.dk/Research/PhD-Programme/PhD-Defences/PhD-Defences-2025/May/Ane-Rahbek-Vier_

The thesis spans 5 papers that advance data and network analysis of bicycle infrastructure, from the 3 perspectives of 1) data foundations, 2) spatial patterns of bikeability, 3) linking research and planning. Unique achievements are the analysis of a whole country’s (Denmark’s) bicycle infrastructure and network, with the creation of open source tools. The thesis also concludes a project funded by the Danish Ministry of Transport / Road Directorate.

In her research Ane reveals that bicycle infrastructure data often suffer from inconsistencies and low quality, reflecting historical underinvestment in active mobility data. This data heterogeneity creates an information gap and necessitates extensive preprocessing, creating barriers to cycling research and planning. Additionally, she finds that bikeability and access to low-stress cycling infrastructure are highly spatially clustered, with substantial disparities between urban and rural areas. While urban areas generally benefit from better cycling conditions, large segments of the Danish population are deprived of the advantages of active mobility. The geographical differences in bicycle infrastructure access and data quality highlight the need for a spatial perspective in cycling research. Finally, she demonstrates that data-driven tools can aid bicycle planning by generating insights into complex planning questions that involve large geographical areas.

With her PhD completed, Ane has already started a research position at Roskilde University, where she remains at least for the short term. We are both sad to “lose” Ane with her friendly, collegial spirit and unreplaceable skill set, and happy for her success and positive impact in the world. That being said, we are not finished collaborating, and will always be happy to see Ane around.

Anastassia defends her PhD: Urban Data Science for Sustainable Mobility

Big congratulations to Dr. Anastassia Vybornova – she defended her thesis yesterday, on Urban Data Science for Sustainable Mobility! 🥳 🎓 This makes Anastassia the first PhD student who did their whole PhD journey at NERDS – about which we are especially proud, besides her brilliant scientific accomplishments.

Supervisor: Michael Szell
Committee: Luca Rossi, Malene Freudendal-Pedersen, Robin Lovelace

Read her thesis here: https://en.itu.dk/Research/PhD-Programme/PhD-Defences/PhD-Defences-2025/March/Anastassia-Vybornova

The thesis spans 8 papers that advance Urban Data Science, exploring how this emerging field can ethically support human mobility that is both environmentally and socially sustainable, through the two lenses of Data and Networks.

In her research she develops algorithms and pipelines for multi-purpose spatial network simplification, for data quality assessment and planning of bicycle networks and low-traffic neighborhoods, showcasing applications to various cities. Further, she outlines pathways for incorporating data ethics into computational approaches to spatial manifestations of social inequalities. Lastly, she investigates the impact of transportation infrastructure on social connections in cities, quantitatively corroborating that urban highways are barriers to social ties. Stemming from various interdisciplinary collaborations, the results of this thesis cover multiple conceptual levels of Urban Data Science, from open source software development and data quality assessment to transportation network planning and the intersection of social and spatial networks. Through these efforts, this thesis advances the emerging field of Urban Data Science, showcasing the field’s potential to make human mobility more sustainable.

With her PhD completed, Anastassia starts a postdoc position at SODAS with Roberta Sinatra, retaining a visiting affiliation at NERDS. Anastassia has been both a professional and social cornerstone of NERDS, so we are lucky we will keep seeing her around. 💜

Update April 4th 2025: The defense and time in Copenhagen made a lasting impact on our external examiner: https://www.robinlovelace.net/post/copenhagenize/