Eleven early-stage TU/e researchers have been awarded a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), which is a new record for the university. The NWO Veni grant is intended for researchers who have finished their PhD research in recent years. This year Siyuan Liu, Inês Figueiredo Pereira, Marianna Capasso, Ruisheng Su, Luuk van Laake, Hilde Weerts, Nadia Erkamp, Claudia Reyes San Martin, Fahim Shakib, Laura Rijns, and Tom van der Pol will each receive Veni funding worth up to 320,000 euros. This funding can be used to perform research over the next three years.
Siyuan Liu: STAMP - Security-aware task planning and control of multi-agent cyber-physical systems
The technical and societal trend to interconnect systems, devices, and infrastructure at a large scale through information and communication sharing not only enhances performance and functionality but also increases unintended security threats of different natures.
In her Veni project, Siyuan Liu (Department of Electrical Engineering) will define and measure "information leakage", develop control software to plan complex mission tasks while limiting what outsiders can infer, and create scalable design rules so large systems can be assembled from smaller, verified components. The results will support more trustworthy autonomous systems in healthcare, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure.
"This funding is a wonderful recognition that allows me to shape an independent research line, and to pursue my bold research ideas for trustworthy autonomy," says Liu. "With this grant I'll develop verifiable decision-making methods that can help large teams of autonomous systems work together intelligently and safely, while satisfying security requirements by design."
Inês Figueiredo Pereira: MicroTear - Microfluidic contact lenses for controlled tear collection and analysis
Tears are more than emotional responses - they are windows into our health. They contain biomarkers that can reveal early signs of diseases such as Alzheimer's and help monitor conditions like diabetes. Yet, current methods to collect tears for analysis are unreliable and often distort these signals.
For her Veni project, Inês Figueiredo Pereira (Department of Mechanical Engineering) will develop soft contact lenses with tiny microfluidic channels and valves that use natural blinking to collect clean, precise tear samples without discomfort.
This technology could transform everyday eyewear into a powerful tool for non-invasive early disease detection and continuous health monitoring, making preventive care simple, seamless, and accessible.
"This Veni grant is a major step in my academic career and it will allow me to pursue an exciting new research direction in tear-based health monitoring," says Figueiredo Pereira. "I want to explore how microfluidic technology can transform everyday contact lenses into smart wearable devices that can continuously and painlessly track health through tears."
Marianna Capasso: Rethinking Responsibility in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly used across society, from workplaces to healthcare contexts. However, these systems can cause significant harms. Who is responsible when these harms occur?
Existing approaches to moral responsibility focus on actors and overlook structural processes behind GenAI, including large-scale data training producing disproportionate harms.
Building on case-based analyses of GenAI chatbots, the Veni project of Marianna Capasso (Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences) develops a social justice-sensitive framework for responsibility to address such structural challenges. The framework will offer conceptual and normative tools for the theory and practice of responsibility in the GenAI age.
"This funding is a major step in my career, allowing me to establish research independence and bring together experts to rethink responsibility in the GenAI age," says Capasso. "I hope to unlock a paradigm shift in GenAI responsibility, where social justice becomes central to addressing emerging challenges and structural harms."
Ruisheng Su: Uncovering the hidden half - Image-based decision support beyond technical stroke treatment success
Ischemic stroke is a major global disease, imposing significant and growing burdens on patients, families, and healthcare systems. Despite major advances in treatment, about half of patients do not recover functional independence even after a technically successful procedure. This "hidden half" of stroke outcomes remains poorly addressed.
For his Veni project, Ruisheng Su (Department of Biomedical Engineering) will develop new methods to understand brain blood flow characteristics, gain insights from images and clinical data, and link them to stroke recovery.
By translating these insights into explainable AI models, this project aims to support personalized treatment strategies and improve recovery and quality of life for stroke patients.
"This grant helps me initiate research at the intersection of medical imaging, explainable AI, and neurovascular interventions," says Su. "Behind every angiographic image is a patient whose recovery can still be changed, and I hope that my research can contribute to this change."
Luuk van Laake: Bio-inspired fluidic circuits for autonomous soft robots
Soft robots are made of soft materials such as rubber. In specific applications, these robots are safer and more versatile than those made of steel and aluminium. However, designing and controlling soft robots is not easy, exactly because they are so flexible.
In his Veni project, Luuk van Laake (Department of Mechanical Engineering) seeks to design soft robots that are simple, and yet autonomously perform complex tasks by making use of physical interactions with their environment.
This new approach, inspired by nature, will pave the way to advanced real-world applications of soft robotics in agri-food, industry, and medical devices.
"This Veni grant enables me to study a question I care about, and helps me set up my own research group," says Van Laake. "It will help unlock a method to design control systems for soft robots faster and better. Added to that, this project could help bring soft robotics from the lab to real-world applications, such as search-and-rescue robots or medical assist devices."
Hilde Weerts: Algorithms increasingly guide important decisions, but do they work as intended?
Algorithms increasingly shape important decisions, for example in employment, social welfare, and healthcare. Unfortunately, they can also harm fundamental rights, such as the right to non-discrimination.
Legally, an algorithm that is both harmful and ineffective, cannot be justified. Yet in practice, we rarely know whether they work as intended.
For her Veni project, Hilde Weerts from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science will develop new interdisciplinary standards, drawing on both law and computer science, to assess the real-world effectiveness of algorithms and improve the protection of fundamental rights.
Nadia Erkamp: Understanding the guestlist of a protein get-together
Inside our cells, proteins often gather dynamically in compartments. These "get-togethers" allow the proteins to interact and to keep the cell and us healthy.
Notably, when a mistake is made in the guestlist, proteins can interact in unhealthy ways which leads to disease.
In this Veni-funded project, Nadia Erkamp (Department of Biomedical Engineering) will investigate this guestlist using a self-driving laboratory, which is a setup that performs experiments autonomously using artificial intelligence. In this manner, the rules behind the protein selection will be understood, helping us better understand cells.
"In my opinion, performing research that exceeds the state-of-the-art requires a long-term commitment and the ability to take risks. The VENI grant enables this," says Erkamp. "Understanding how our cells stay healthy is key to us staying healthy. My project makes a small, but significant contribution to this effort."
Claudia Reyes San Martin: Protecting Mitochondria in the Deep Freeze
Freezing cells and tissues is essential for modern medicine, but mitochondria, the tiny structures that power cells, are easily damaged during freezing and often fail after thawing.
For her Veni-funded project, Claudia Reyes San Martin (Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry) will develop new ways to detect and control that damage at the smallest scales where it begins.
Using quantum-based sensors, together with carefully designed materials that influence how ice forms, Reyes San Martin aim's to identify why mitochondria lose function during freezing and how this damage can be prevented. The results will support safer and more reliable preservation of biological material and help enable future therapies that depend on healthy, functional mitochondria.
"This funding provides an opportunity to address a longstanding question in cryobiology: why mitochondria lose function during freezing and how that damage can be prevented," says Reyes San Martin. "By revealing the mechanisms of mitochondrial freezing injury at the nanoscale, I hope to offer a scientific foundation for improved and more predictable outcomes of long-term cryopreservation."
Fahim Shakib: Complexity-Aware Learning in Safety-Critical Dynamical Systems
Neural networks provide powerful tools for modelling and controlling complex dynamical systems, yet scalability, efficiency, and safety remain key challenges.
For his Veni project, Fahim Shakib at the Department of Mechanical Engineering seeks to establish the theoretical foundations for complexity-aware and safe artificial intelligence (AI) for dynamical systems, where model complexity is explicitly considered during learning, while preserving performance and safety with formal guarantees.
Combining system-theoretic principles with learning strategies will enable training of neural models suitable for real-time deployment on resource-constrained platforms. The proposed methods will be validated on safety-critical systems, paving the way for efficient and safety-certifiable AI in automated engineering applications in the high-tech, health, and energy sectors.
"I'm excited to devote my time towards safe and complexity-aware AI for dynamical systems," says Shakib. "It is my hope that my project will contribute to safe and sustainable AI by enabling efficient, safety-certified deployment of intelligent systems."
Laura Rijns: Electric treatment of neural diseases down to single cell precision
Neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and multiple sclerosis, disrupt the electrical signals that allow neurons to communicate.
Current 'chemical' treatments relying on drugs are systemic causing off-target effects, while upcoming electrical approaches directly influence neural activity, offering direct and precise control. However, existing electronic materials stimulate many cells at once and lack cellular precision.
Laura Rijns (Department of Biomedical Engineering) will use her Veni grant to develop conductive hydrogels that can selectively interact with and modulate individual neurons. By combining material design with cellular engineering, this unique approach will open new possibilities for precise electrical treatment of neurological diseases down to single cell precision.
"I can't wait to get started on this new research direction on supramolecular bioelectronic materials as I seek to develop cell-specific neural interfaces," says Rijns. "Modulation of individual neurons via future precision electric treatments could be hugely impactful for the treatment of neural diseases such as multiple sclerosis."
Tom van der Pol: Weak interactions make a powerful electronic material
The most efficient computer is still the human brain. To mimic this remarkable system and integrate biology with technology, scientists are studying soft materials that can conduct both electricity and ions.
At the same time, other researchers are developing Lego-like systems that are as dynamic as the human body.
Tom van der Pol's Veni project at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry combines both approaches to study how these molecular "building blocks" behave when processing electronic and ionic signals. A better understanding of this interplay will lead to advanced materials with applications in both medicine and information technology.
"I hope to lay the foundation for responsive organic electronics (organic electronics that respond to external input such as light and heat) and eventually dynamic bioelectronics (lego-like electronics that are dynamic like cells/tissue)," says Van der Pol.
