Spring Seminar Speakers
Jan-Willem Brijan
Lecturer / Project manager, University of Groningen, NL
Jan-Willem is the lead of the Learning Analytics project at the Faculty of Science and Engineering and is the intended project leader of the project “Analytics for Teaching and Learning” university wide, which is pending approval.
He taught in two programs and worked in / coordinated the Data, Analytics & Tools for Education (DATE) team which means he knows the education organisation inside-out.
Together with the project team we come up with insightful analytics to improve the quality of education, help teachers, students and the management
Nadine Burquel
Director General, HUMANE, BE
Nadine is the Director General of HUMANE. She works closely with the Chair and the governing bodies on HUMANE’s strategic developments. She manages the HUMANE Office to offer the membership an attractive portfolio of professional development and networking activities. She has been involved with HUMANE since its foundation in the mid-nineties, until December 2022 as Executive Director of the three residential schools (the Barcelona Winter School, the Berlin Summer School and the Asia School).
Nadine has extensive director level experience, having worked with multiple international non-profit organisations, university networks and international boards. She has wide knowledge of leadership, governance and management in higher education institutions, and the global trends in the higher education sector. As EFMD Director of Business School Services she was responsible for a wide portfolio of large global events and communities of practices, interacting with business schools and universities in the wider Europe, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, the Gulf, as well as North and South America. More recently in Maastricht University she was strategic adviser to the leadership of the School of Business and Economics, advising on international accreditation, the internationalisation strategy, and delivering societal impact.
She has significant experience with EU (higher) education policy and programmes since the early days of the Erasmus programme. She has a strong track record of EU projects, leading large EU-funded European university networks and providing technical assistance to the European Commission. She is high level EU policy expert, working at system level in Brussels and beyond, carrying out capacity building and evaluations of EU interventions, having worked with EU Delegations in many countries.
Oskar Gstrein
Assistant Professor; Programme Director BSc Data Science and Society; Deputy Department Head Governance and Innovation; Campus Fryslân Data Research Centre, University of Groningen, NL
Mag. phil. Dr. iur. Oskar J. Gstrein is Associate Professor at the Department of Governance and Innovation of the interdisciplinary Faculty Campus Fryslân, University of Groningen. He is also Programme Director of the BSc Data Science & Society and Theme Coordinator ‘Data Autonomy’ at the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI.
Oskar joined the University of Groningen to work with the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy. His overall research theme is ‘Human Dignity in the Digital Age’.
His research explores the transitions from abstract principles (e.g. human rights/ethical principles) into concrete legal or governance frameworks. His teaching is inspired by a contemporary interpretation of the Humboldtian model of higher education.
Aline Klingenberg
Professor of educational innovation, data sharing and communication law and head of the IT law teaching program at the Faculty of Law, University of Groningen, NL
Aline Klingenberg is professor of educational innovation, data sharing and communication law and is head of the IT law teaching program at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen.
She has extensive experience in teaching about technology law related matters, and in particular data protection law. She teaches not only law-students, but also post-academic courses. For instance, to the Courts of Law in the Northern Netherlands, where she is also a honorary deputy judge.
She writes and publishes about data protection and electronic communication and leads/participates in various research projects.
Gavin McLachlan
Vice Principal, Chief Information Officer, The University of Edinburgh, UK
Gavin was born in Toronto. He graduated in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia and he holds an MBA from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California with a major in international business.
Gavin was appointed as CIO and Librarian at Edinburgh in 2015. A member of the University of Edinburgh Senior Leadership Team, he is the Vice Principal, budget holder and senior manager of the Information Services Group spanning IT, Data, external IT service and product units, Libraries, Heritage collections, Museums and online education platforms. Gavin is one of the university leads on our Digital and AI strategy.
Previous to Edinburgh he worked at University College London (UCL) for 6 years as the Deputy Chief Information Officer and the Director of Research IT Services. Prior to UCL, he held a number of senior IT management positions at Computacenter and Capita Education Services (part of the Capita Group) and in a number of other private sector organisations.
Mr McLachlan is an external member of the Oxford University Information and Digital Committee, as well as an expert advisor to Scottish government as the chair of the Scottish Government expert group on the Digital Identity Assurance and ScotAccount programmes
Kai Nordlund
Vice-Rector Academic Affairs and Digitalisation, University of Helsinki, FI
Kai Nordlund is professor of computational materials physics and Vice rector of the University of Helsinki. As vice rector, he puts particular emphasis on high-quality education, student and staff wellbeing and promotion of highest level science.
Living in a family where four languages are spoken routinely, also multilinguality and ensuring equal opportunities for foreign staff and students are close to his heart.
He received his PhD in physics in 1995 at the University of Helsinki, and after postdoc positions at the University of Illinois and Academy of Finland was appointed full professor at his alma mater in 2003. In addition to being vice rector, he is member of a 20-person research group doing quantum mechanical, classical and mesoscale atomistic simulations of radiation and other non-equilibrium effects in all classes of materials.
As of 2023, he has published more than 580 refereed publications, and his h-index exceeds his age.
Alex Pellacani
Board Member HUMANE; Director General, University of Trento, IT
Alex Pellacani graduated in Economics in 1995, is certified chartered accountant since 2000 and has been appointed as member of the Board of HUMANE in June 2022.
He is currently the Managing Director of the University of Trento, a role he was appointed to in 2016. The University of Trento counts around 16,000 students, close to 1.600 employees, about equally divided in academic and non academic staff.
As Managing Director, he is responsible for the implementation of the strategies and objectives defined by the governing bodies of the University. He has the overall responsibility for the management and organisation of the support services.
Among his professional roles, Alex Pellacani held the position of Chief Financial Officer of the University of Trento from 2008 to 2015. He has broad experience in accounting and finance management processes. Based on his technical background, he has been involved as a national board member for the definition of the accounting and reporting principles in the Higher Education Sector established by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.
Prior to joining University of Trento, he worked for major multinational consulting firms, including Arthur Andersen, Deloitte and Accenture. In particular, in Accenture he was manager in the Global Business Solutions Division, responsible for consulting projects in the areas of administration, finance and management control.
Bart Rienties
Professor of Learning Analytics, Institute of Educational Technology, Open University, UK
Dr. Bart Rienties is Professor of Learning Analytics and programme lead of the learning analytics and learning design research programme at the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University UK. He leads a group of academics who provide university-wide learning analytics and learning design solutions and conduct evidence-based research of how students and professionals learn.
His primary research interests are focussed on Learning Analytics, Professional Development, and the role of motivation in learning. He is President of the Society of Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), the largest researcher community on learning analytics.
He has published over 300 academic outputs, and is the 1st most published and cited author on learning design and learning analytics in the period 2014-2023 (Drugova et al. 2023), the 2nd most published author on Networks in Education in period 1969-2020 (Saqr et al. 2022), and the 3rd most published author on EdTech in the period 2002-2022 (Aaradhi & Chakraborty, 2023).
Louwarnoud van der Duim
Domain Manager Education, Center for Information Technology, NL
Louwarnoud is Director Education and IT for the University of Groningen. He is responsible for the usage of IT in education, digital assessments, professionalization of teachers, educational institutional research and innovation in education.
His background is in Educational sciences and he couples this with a lot of work experience in large scale deployments of IT-systems in a university context.
His passion is the gradual improvement of education which he sees as one of the main goals of every society.