Jacob joins us as a new postdoc, bringing degrees in mathematics and extensive experience with data‑driven modeling of epidemics.We welcome our latest NERDS member: Manuel Knepper.
Manuel, who is already guest at NERDS since a few months, joins now as a research assistant for one year, after having finished a master in data science here at ITU with Michele and Anastassia on predicting cyclist flows with machine learning methods.
Manuel will work with Michael and Anastassia on the recently won InnoExplorer grant as research software engineer to turn raw bicycle network algorithms into packaged Python software usable for urban planners, helping us close the gap between research and policy/application. Manuel’s background, his thesis, and also his industry experience with data and software engineering makes him a perfect fit for this role. Besides, Manuel will also be teaching assistant for the geospatial data science course in spring.
We are excited to have you with us, Manuel. Welcome!
We welcome our latest NERDS member: Ditte Bjerregaard.
Ditte joins as a new PhD student, coming with a background in anthropology, and as the founder and director of the Center for Violence Prevention (Center for Voldsforebyggelse, https://centerforvoldsforebyggelse.com/).
Ditte will work with Michele Coscia, using data from police reports and court cases involving femicide, to understand the determinants and, hopefully, create early warning systems. We are excited to have you with us, Ditte. Welcome!
We welcome our latest NERDS member: Morten Boilesen.
Morten joins as a new PhD student, coming with degrees in mathematics, musicology, and engineering, and experience as a start-up data scientist.
Morten will work with Jonas L Juul on the InForM project (funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation), using Danish register data to study how COVID-19 spread in Denmark. 3 exciting years ahead! We are excited to have you with us, Morten. Welcome!
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.
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/
We have two student promotions to celebrate 🎉
First, Elisabetta Salv
ai has become a PhD student on Jan 1st 2025 at SODAS and the AI Pioneer Centre, supervised by Roberta Sinatra, after having visited us for many months. Her work centers around applying complex systems methods to uncover and explore bias existing in data and machine learning algorithms. She is currently working on the study of fairness in rankings of networks with binary attributes.
She will continue to visit us regularly. Congratulations Betta!
Second, Anastassia Vybornova has submitted her PhD Thesis by Dec 31st 2024, and since Jan 1st 2025 she is formally Postdoc with us for 3 more months until her PhD defense end of March. So, the real celebration for her will be then, but it is nice that she stays with us for 3 more months. In this time, Anastassia keeps finishing up some bicycle network and sustainable mobility papers.
At NERDS we welcome our latest member: Nikos Salamanos!
Nikos joins us as postdoctoral researcher, coming from the Cyprus University of Technology, where he was working on applying network analysis to study social media information dissemination.
Nikos will work on an interdisciplinary Villum Synergy project on archaeological data, where he’ll develop network analysis methods to deal with highly biased and incomplete data. The idea is to test how network analysis can aid archaeological research, ultimately applying the newly developed techniques to data retrieved from the remnants of the Roman Empire.
Nikos will be supervised by Michele Coscia and will work jointly with a team of archaeologists led by Tom Brughmans at Aarhus University. Welcome!
At NERDS we welcome our latest member: Anders Aagaard Kristensen!
Anders joins us as PhD student, coming from the University of South Denmark, where he was working on machine learning methods.
His PhD project will be about the use of deep learning and generative models to understand leaves of absence in work data. The idea is to predict, simulate and, ultimately, make interventions, so that workers will have less taxing working schedules, leading to fewer leaves for sickness reasons.
Anders will be working jointly with NERDS and the National Research Center for Work Environment (NFA), which finances his fellowship and provides the data. He will be supervised by Michele Coscia at NERDS.
We are happy to welcome back Alessia Galdeman, who has previously visited us as a PhD student and now comes back as a postdoc, working on the COCOONS project. Glad you have you back Alessia, you’re our first NERDS boomerang! 🪃
