Max van Duijn
I am an assistant professor at Leiden University, The Netherlands. My research interest is in language and stories in relation to cognition and Artificial Intelligence. In my academic I work seek to combine approaches and methods from both the sciences and humanities. Outside the university, my writing and talks cover storytelling, language, evolution, AI, and practical applications of these topics in business and society.
CV
Dr. Max Johannes van Duijn (1984) ~ I studied Dutch Language and Literature at Leiden University (BA, cum laude) and completed minors in Philosophy and Business Administration. From 2008-2010 I was enrolled in a two-year Research Master where I specialised in philosophy of mind and cognitive approaches to language and literature (MPhil, cum laude). During my studies I co-founded &joy, a charity supporting sports, drama, and music for street children in Uganda. In 2005 I started working as an entrepeneur in marketing and IT business, which I kept on doing until taking up a full-time PhD position at the Leiden University Centre for Arts in Society (LUCAS) in 2011. In 2014 I joined the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group (SENRG) at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. In 2013 I co-initiated the Fraternity Friendship Study (FFS), a longitudinal investigation of social network formation and friendship in European student fraternities. From 2015 I started working as Assistant Professor and from 2017-2021 I was the Programme Director of the MediaTechnology MSc at Leiden University. I co-founded the Creative Intelligence Lab in 2018 and in 2019 I was awarded a NWO Veni grant, which kickstarted my current research project on storytelling in children aged 4-11 and using AI/Data Science to model cognitive developmental trends.
Activities & Links
Assistant Professor (UD) at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science
Co-chairperson trace Wetenschap & Samenleving at De Jonge Akademie
Lecturer at the PRE-University College (Honours Academy)
Researcher at the Creative Intelligence Lab
Previous Treasurer at the European Human Behaviour & Evolution Association (EHBEA)
Popular-science blogger at Faces of Science, KNAW
Sea sailor on the OpzijOpzij