Agnieszka Borowska
Computational econometrician and statistician Agnieszka Borowska develops efficient sampling-based methods for prediction and inference. She has worked on financial risk forecasting, state space models, inference and uncertainty quantification for problems in biophysics and biomechanics, and closed loop effects in healthcare prognostication systems. Her projects related to important real-life problems, e.g. approximate inference for biophysical models of cell movement (cell movement is crucial e.g. for understanding metastasis in cancer research) and Bayesian optimization for a cardio-mechanic model of the left ventricle (the biomechanical parameters are powerful predictors of the risk of cardiovascular diseases e.g. a heart attack).
With the VU Startpremie, Borowska plans to expand her interdisciplinary research at the intersection of econometrics, statistics, bioscience, and medicine. Borowska will use the grant to cover costs of personnel, international collaboration and organizing an international workshop in Amsterdam. The latter will bring together researchers working on measuring intervention (closed loop) effects across different fields (economics, medicine, mathematics). She expects this event to be of interest to researchers from multiple VU departments as well as to groups outside VU Amsterdam. Besides, Borowska will work on time series econometrics to improve risk forecast during crisis periods and to analyze the effects of macroeconomic uncertainty.
Virginia Díez Obrero
Genetic epidemiologist Virginia Díez Obrero investigates how genetic variation influences the risk of developing diseases. She does this by analyzing genetic and other molecular data from millions of individuals from large-scale biobanks, such as the UK Biobank. Translating genetic data into insights into the genetic mechanisms of diseases paves the way to finding new drug targets. She will establish the data infrastructure and develop the computational tools to analyze this data at Virginia University, which will benefit various teams within the Neuroscience Department at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
For example, hundreds of genetic variants are associated with Alzheimer's disease, but the specific molecular mechanism by which each of these variants influences predisposition to the disease remains to be elucidated. Integrating multiple 'omics' data (genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics) from large biobanks can shed light on the specific molecular pathway of each genetic risk variant. At the VU, she and her colleagues will further refine the development of carefully compiled data catalogues that can be used within an efficient computer system, and the biostatistical methods to generate genetic insights for various complex diseases.
Marcos Oliveira
Computer scientist Marcos Oliveira works in computational social sciences. His research focuses on how societal challenges, such as inequality, urban crime, and the social risks of digitalization, arise from individual actions and interactions. He combines behavioral data with mathematical and computational models to identify mechanisms that determine social structure and dynamics. Oliveira uses data and interpretable models, based on concepts from sociology, criminology, and network science, to understand how social problems arise from everyday actions. His research utilizes behavioral data, ranging from online browsing behavior to sensor measurements of face-to-face interactions. This type of data allows him to observe behavioral patterns that are difficult to capture with surveys or administrative data alone.
A key component of Oliveira's research focuses on social interactions: how people form groups, how some groups become more isolated, and how these processes can unintentionally lead to inequality. With the VU Starting Grant, he will expand this line of research to the context of higher education, with a focus on the VU student community. The grant supports data collection on how students interact in everyday academic and social situations, how networks develop, and how different student groups become more or less connected. It also supports the development of explicit models, laying the foundation for larger follow-up projects and external funding for initiatives that strengthen inclusion, social safety, and the well-being of students at VU Amsterdam and beyond.
VU Startpremie
The VU Startpremie is a funding initiative to connect top scientific talent to VU Amsterdam. The grant is intended to provide additional support to international newcomers in further developing their talent and to position VU as an attractive employer for this target group. The VU Startpremie amounts to €30,000 per laureate and can be used at the laureate's discretion, such as for appointing a (student) assistant, a PhD candidate, acquiring databases, attending training or symposiums, etc. A maximum of three Startpremies are awarded each year.