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Welcome to Prof. Dr. Marco Spruit's academic website. This dashboard highlights various aspects of my current work activities. Navigate to the appropriate pages in the 'Blue MenuBar' (above) for much more details on my work as Full Professor of Advanced Data Science in Population Health at Leiden University's Medical Center (PHEG) and its Faculty of Science (LIACS). Other pages which I actively maintain, are my Google Scholar and ORCID profile pages. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Active Grants & Collaborations & Students

Top-5 projects

Postdocs & PhD candidates (13)


The Translational Data Science & AI Lab: https://tdslab.nl

Research grants (25)

2025-2029: MULAMAQ, 300K EUR (LIACS).
Multimodal Language Markers for Perceived Quality-of-Life Assessment. InSPIRe 2025 (LIACS Initiative for Strategic PhD/Postdoc and Innovative Research). Remark: grant total: 300K EUR. Researcher(s): Ng,Y.M. easychair.org/inspire2025
2025-2029: UNCAN-Connect, 475K EUR (LIACS).
Decentralized Collaborative Network for Advancing Cancer Research and Innovation. HORIZON-RIA: HORIZON-MISS-2024-CANCER-01-01 (Research and Innovation actions supporting the implementation of the Mission on Cancer). Remarks: grant total: 30M EUR, 53 partners from 19 European and associated countries, comprising 6 SMEs, 3 LEs, 42 RTOs, 3 affiliated partners, and 1 NGO. Researcher(s): 1 PhD student, 1 postdoc. horizon-miss-2024-cancer-01-01
2025: Understanding Homicide in Indonesia
Leiden University Global Fund (LUGF) Seed Fund. Harnessing Traditional and New Media Data for Insight. Collaboration with Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Applicants: O. Bogolyubova, M. Liem (ISGA), M. Spruit. /leiden-university-global-fund/
2024-2026: ECOTIP, EUR 130K (LUMC).
Identifying tipping points of the effects of living environments on ecosyndemics of lifestyle-related illnesses by ML/NLP modelling of a patient segmentation model based on EHR and environmental data. Financer(s): NWO New Science Agenda (NWA-ORC). Applicant(s): Kiefte,J., Spruit,M., Vos,R., et al. Remark: NWO dossier NWA.1518.22.151; grant total: 4.4M EUR. Researcher(s): Muizelaar,H. www.nwo.nl/en/projects/nwa151822151
2024-2025: Phaeton, EUR 150K (LUMC) + EUR 50K (LIACS).
Pandemic preparedness. Portable platform as a service for crowdsourced and privacy respecting data analysis and modeling. Financer: ZonMW Modelleren voor Pandemische Paraatheid: een oproep tot innovatie en kennisontwikkeling SA 2023. Applicant(s): Bouwman,J., Haas,M., Spruit,M.. Remark: ZonMW dossier #10710062310030, grant total: 500K EUR. Researcher(s): Vinkenoog,M. universiteitleiden.nl/.../liacs-phaeton
2023-2026: INSAFEDARE, EUR 571K (LUMC).
Innovative applications of assessment and assurance of data and synthetic data for regulatory decision support. Generation and evaluation of a benchmarking synthetic dataset amenable to the regulatory process, analytical methods for validation of digital health applications, and components for data integration pipelines. Financer(s): Horizon Europe: HORIZON-HLTH-2022-TOOL-11-02: Tools and technologies for a healthy society. Applicant(s): Despotou,G. et al. Remark: HEU project #101095661; grant total: 4.8M EUR. Researcher(s): Achterberg,J. & Dijk,B. van 10.3030/101095661
2023-2025: HealthBox, EUR 66,000 (LUMC).
A personalized, home-based eHealth intervention to treat metabolic syndrome and prevent its complications by ML/NLP modelling of a patient segmentation model based on EHR and environmental data. Applicant(s): Chavannes,N., Atsma,D., Pijl,H., Vos,R., et al. Remark: grant total: 2.5M EUR. Researcher(s): Muizelaar,H. www.nwo.nl/en/projects/kich1gz0321007
2021-2025: VIPP, EUR 60K (LUMC).
Virtual Patients and Population Dataset. Develop a synthetic ELAN dataset to improve teaching data science. Financer(s): LUMC Interprofessional Education (IPE) programme. Applicant(s): Spruit,M., & Szuhai,K. Remark: Project Raamplan Implementatie Artsopleiding (PRIMA) 2020 working group deliverable wrt Theme 5 on Big Data and AI. Researcher(s): Faiq,A. healthcampusdenhaag.nl/nl/project/ virtuele-patient-en-populatie-vipp-dataset/

Research collaborations (16)

2022-2026: PreProMMF (ULEI)
Natural Language Processing in Mental Health: Detection, Prediction and Promotion with Multilingual, Multimodal and Federated Techniques. Sponsor: Arab Academy of Science, Technology & Maritime Transport (AAST). Financed as a 60% lecturer - 40% researcher contract. Researcher(s): Khalil,S.
2021-2025: Data2Bedside (LUMC)
Reusing routinely collected data from regional GP offices in ELAN to create a clinical decision support tool to identify disease progression risk levels in Type Two Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) patients. Sponsor: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia scholarship. Researcher(s): Alfaraj,S.
2021-2026: PHA (LUMC)
Population Health Analytics. Maturity modelling for situational data infrastructure and scenario planning towards appropriate regional intelligence. Sponsor: Q-Consult Zorg. Researcher(s): Roorda,E.
2018-2024: PbD (UU)
Privacy-by-Design. How organisations can demonstrate responsible data use in information systems through Privacy-by-Design. Sponsor: P&O Rijk. Researcher(s): Dijk,F. van

Research theme

MSc students (103)

  1. Thiel,Haike van (In progress). Personalised and realistic training scenarios with artificial patients using AI models in Trauma Care. Civil-Military Centre of Expertise for Trauma Care (CETC). Supervisors: Spruit,Marco.
  2. Schinkelshoek,Laurens (In progress). Machine learning for surgical departments. Supervisors: Spruit,Marco, & van Nieuwenburg,Evert (LION/LIACS).
  3. Nguyen,Van (In progress). Social Robotics System for Elderly Care Using Large Language Models and Raspberry Pi. Supervisors: Spruit,Marco, & Van Dijk,Bram (daily) (LUMC).
  4. de Koning,Irene (In progress). Creating a data-driven health provider for benchmarking. Supervisors: Spruit,Marco, & Husslage,Bart (CZ).
  5. Meng,Maggie (In progress). An evaluation of data analysis techniques in digital health applications. Supervisors: Spruit,Marco, Van Dijk,Bram, & Achterberg,Jim (daily) (LUMC).
  6. Mian,Belal (In progress). LLMs in the analysis of interviews with older people about goals of care: a pilot study. Supervisors: Spruit,Marco, Van Dijk,Bram (daily), & Mooijaart,Simon (LUMC).
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BSc students (55)

  1. Sanz Lozano, Rebeca (In progress). Assessing Bias in Machine Learning Models for Alzheimer's Disease Detection Across Gender and Age. Spruit,Marco; van Dijk,Bram. (UL)
  2. Hagen, Leila (In progress). News mining for Homicide characteristics in Indonesia. Spruit,Marco; Bogolyubova,Olga (UL/FGGA).
  3. Cieloszczyk, Anna (In progress). MDL-based association rule mining on ELAN data to better understand opioids usage. Spruit,Marco.
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Recent Publications & Talks & Committees

Journal articles (118)

  1. Alfaraj,S., Vos,R., Spruit,M., Groenwold,R., & Mook-Kanamori,D. (In press). Insulin Initiation in Type 2 Diabetes: Unraveling the Sociodemographic and Biological Dynamics using Routinely Collected Primary Care Data. British Journal of General Practice. temp
  2. Van Dijk,B., Lefebvre,A., & Spruit,M. (2025). Welzijn.AI: A Conversational AI System for Monitoring Mental Well-being and a Use Case for Responsible AI Development. Maturitas, 108616. In: The future of healthy ageing. 10.1016/j.maturitas.2025.108616
  3. Achterberg,J., Haas,M., van Dijk,B., & Spruit,M. (2025). Fidelity-agnostic synthetic data generation improves utility while retaining privacy. Patterns, 101287. 10.1016/j.patter.2025.101287
  4. Mosteiro,P., Wang,R., Scheepers,F;, & Spruit,M. (2025). De-identification Methodologies in Dutch Medical Texts: A Replication Study of Deduce and Deidentify. Electronics, 14(8), 1636. Digital Security and Privacy Protection: Trends and Applications, 2nd Edition. 10.3390/electronics14081636
  5. Rijcken,E., Zervanou,K., Mosteiro,P., Scheepers,F., Spruit,M., & Kaymak,U. (2025). Machine Learning vs. Rule-Based Methods for Document Classification of Electronic Health Records within Mental Health Care - A Systematic Literature Review. Natural Language Processing Journal, 10, 100129. 10.1016/j.nlp.2025.100129
  6. Alfaraj,S., Kist,J., Groenwold,R., Spruit,M., Mook-Kanamori,D., & Vos,R. (2024). External validation of SCORE2-Diabetes in the Netherlands across various Socioeconomic levels in native-Dutch and non-Dutch populations. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, zwae354. 10.1093/eurjpc/zwae354
  7. Roorda,E., Bruijnzeels,M., Struijs,J., & Spruit,M. (2024). Business Intelligence Systems for Population Health Management: A Scoping Review. JAMIA Open, 7(4), ooae122. 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooae122
  8. Drougkas,G., Bakker,E., & Spruit,M. (2024). Multimodal Machine Learning for Language and Speech Markers Identification in Mental Health. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 24, 354. 10.1186/s12911-024-02772-0
  9. Álvarez-Chaves,H., Spruit,M., & R-Moreno,M. (2024). Improving ED admissions forecasting by using generative AI: An approach based on DGAN. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 256, 108363. 10.1016/j.cmpb.2024.108363
  10. Achterberg,J., Haas,M., & Spruit,M. (2024). On the evaluation of synthetic longitudinal electronic health records. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 24, 181. 10.1186/s12874-024-02304-4
  11. Haastrecht,M. van, Haas,M., Brinkhuis,M., & Spruit,M. (2024). Understanding Validity Criteria in Technology-Enhanced Learning: A Systematic Literature Review. Computers & Education, 220, 105128. 10.1016/j.compedu.2024.105128
  12. Rijcken,E., Zervanou,K., Mosteiro,P., Scheepers,F., Spruit,M., & Kaymak,U. (2024). Topic Specificity: a Descriptive Metric for Algorithm Selection and Finding the Right Number of Topics. Natural Language Processing Journal, 8, 100082. 10.1016/j.nlp.2024.100082
  13. Muizelaar,H., Haas,M., van Dortmont,K., van der Putten,P., & Spruit,M. (2024). Extracting Patient Lifestyle Characteristics from Dutch Clinical Text with BERT Models. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 24, 151. 10.1186/s12911-024-02557-5
  14. Khalil, S., Tawfik,N., & Spruit,M. (2024). Federated learning for privacy-preserving depression detection with multilingual language models in social media posts. Patterns, 5, 100990. 10.1016/j.patter.2024.100990
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Wordcloud

gScholar statistics

AllSince 2020
Citations53863741
h-index4031
i10-index10683

Conference proceedings (91)

  1. Klaassen,W., Van Dijk,B., & Spruit,M. (2025). A Review of Challenges in Speech-based Conversational AI for Elderly Care. 35th Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) Conference 2025, Intelligent health systems - From technology to data and knowledge, 327 (pp. 858-862). 19-21 May 2025, Glasgow, Scotland. 10.3233/SHTI250481
  2. Leito,R., Lefebvre,A., Van Dijk, B., & Spruit,M. (2025). A natural and unobtrusive conversation using a RASA-driven chatbot for monitoring the wellbeing of elderlies. 35th Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) Conference 2025, Intelligent health systems - From technology to data and knowledge, 327 (pp. 979-983). 19-21 May 2025, Glasgow, Scotland. 10.3233/SHTI250518
  3. Achterberg,J., Van Dijk,B., Islam,S., Waseem,M., Gallos,P., Epiphaniou,G., Maple,C., Haas,M., & Spruit,M. (2025). The Data Sharing Paradox of Synthetic Data in Healthcare. 35th Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) Conference 2025, Intelligent health systems - From technology to data and knowledge, 327 (pp. 582-586). 19-21 May 2025, Glasgow, Scotland. 10.3233/SHTI250404
  4. Van Dijk,B., Ul Islam,S., Achterberg,J., Muhammad Waseem,H., Gallos,P., Epiphaniou,G., Maple,C., Haas,M., & Spruit,M. (2024). A Novel Taxonomy for Navigating and Classifying Synthetic Data in Healthcare Applications. In Stoicu-Tivadar et al. (eds), Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 321, Collaboration across Disciplines for the Health of People, Animals and Ecosystems. EFMI Special Topic Conference (STC 2024) (pp. 259-263), 27-29 Nov 2024, Timisoara, Romania. 10.3233/SHTI241104
  5. Lefebvre,A., de Schipper,L., Haas,M., & Spruit,M. (2024). Empowering Translational Health Data Science Capabilities in Population Health Management A Case of Building a Data Competence Center. In van de Wetering et al. (Eds.): I3E 2024, 23rd IFIP Conference e-Business, e-Services, and e-Society (I3E 2024), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 14907. 11-13 September 2024, Heerlen, Netherlands. 10.1007/978-3-031-72234-9_33
  6. Gallos,P., Matragkas,N., Ul Islam,S., Epiphaniou,G., Hansen,S., Harrison,S., Van Dijk,B., Haas,M., Pappous,G., Brouwer,S., Torlontano,F., Farooq Abbasi,S., Pournik,O., Churm,J., Mantas,J., Luis Parra-Calderón,C., Petkousis,D., Weber,P., Dzingina,B., Mraidha,C., Maple,C., Achterberg,J., Spruit,M., Saratsioti,E., Moustaghfir,Y., & Arvanitis,T. (2024). INSAFEDARE Project: Innovative Applications of Assessment and Assurance of Data and Synthetic Data for Regulatory Decision Support. Studies in health technology and informatics, 316, 1193-1197. 34th Medical Informatics Europe Conference (MIE 2024), 25-29 Aug 2024, Athens, Greece.
  7. Haastrecht,M., Brinkhuis,M., & Spruit,M. (2024). Federated Learning Analytics: Investigating the Privacy-Performance Trade-Off in Machine Learning for Educational Analytics. In: Olney et al. (eds), Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2024), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 14830 (pp. 62-74). 8-12 July 2024, Recife, Brazil. 10.1007/978-3-031-64299-9_5
  8. Dijk,B. van, Duijn,M. van, Kloostra,L., Spruit,M., & Beekhuizen,B. (2024). Using a Language Model to Unravel Semantic Development in Children's Use of a Dutch Perception Verb. 8th Workshop on Cognitive Aspects of the Lexicon (CogALex@ LREC-COLING 2024) (pp. 98-106). 20 May 2024, Torino, Italy. 2024 - Dijk Duijn Kloostra Spruit Beekhuizen.pdf
  9. Wang,R., Verberne,S., & Spruit,M. (2024). Attend All Options at Once: Full Context Input for Multi-choice Reading Comprehension. In European Conference on Information Retrieval (ECIR 2024) (pp. 387-402). 24-28 March 2024, Glasgow, Scotland. Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978-3-031-56027-9_24
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Invited talks (51)

  1. 17/06/2025: Translational Data Science for One Health: Getting Things Done! How to do data science projects, with various Health use cases which employ a range of AI methods such as NLP, GenAI, and AutoML. UNA Europa Summer School 2025: Bridging Disciplines for One Health Solutions, 16-20 June 2025, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin [170 min] 2025 0617 tds-oh.ppsx
  2. 03/06/2025: Synthetische zorgdata generatie in translationele datawetenschap: Translational Data Science & AI Lab @ Health Campus Den Haag. With Jim Achterberg. Synthetische Data Kennisnetwerk, 3 juni 2025, Nza, Utrecht [45 min] 2025 0603 tds-synth.ppsx
  3. 25/04/2025: Natural Language Processing for Population Health: Showcasing the Translational Data Science & AI Lab @ Health Campus The Hague. Software Production and Science-based Entrepreneurship Symposium, 8 May 2025, Utrecht [30 min] 2025 0508 spses.ppsx
  4. 25/04/2025: One Health: An UNA Europa perspective. Leiden Association for PhD Candidates (LAP) Day: Science and Beyond, LUMC, Leiden [75 min] 2025 0425 onehealth-lap.pdf
  5. 04/04/2025: AI 4 Prevention. Strategy working group on AI for Health Collaboration between LUMC and FWN, Leiden [10 min] 2025 0404 ai4prevention.pdf
  6. 19/09/2024: Natural language processing for enriching real world evidence from electronic health records: AI @ Health Campus The Hague. 3rd Leiden Drug Development Conference (LDDC) - "Artificial Intelligence in drug development, manufacturing and health care", ECC, Leiden [20 min] 2024 0919 lddc.pps
  7. 02/07/2024: Natuurlijke Taalverwerking in de Zorg. AI en Technologie week Geneeskunde jaar 1, LUMC. [40 min] 2024 0702 ai-week-gnk-b1 NLP.pdf
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Leiden University committees (29)

  1. 2025-present: Member Self Steering Committee in UNA Europa for the Data Science & Artifical Intelligence focus area, where I represent the Health perspective. una-europa-leiden
  2. 2024-present: Member Self Steering Committee in UNA Europa for the One Health focus area, where I represent the AI for Health perspective and coordinate life-long learning initiatives for Leiden University. una-europa-leiden
  3. 2024-present: Lead Datadriven Innovation theme in Sectorplan (Versnellen op gezondheid) at LUMC.
  4. 2024-present: Lead AI4Prevention focus area at Leiden AI Center of Expertise for Health (LACE), where LUMC and FWN strategically join forces on AI research. The other three focus areas are AI4Care, AI4Pharma, and AI4Bioscience.
  5. 2024-present: Member ELAN Scientific Board, where I act as the data science PI.
  6. 2023-present: Member LIACS Scientific Council.
  7. 2023-present: Member PHM Scientific Council.
  8. 2023-present: Member PHEG Stuurgroep Studenten Onderwijs (SSO).
  9. 2022-present: Lead of ELAN implementation case in LUMC/Health-RI node.
  10. 2021-present: Co-lead Special Interest Group Health Data Science (with profs. Kraaij & Fiocco).
  11. 2021-present: Member core team LUMC Clinical AI Implementation and Research Lab (CAIRELab).
  12. 2021-present: Member Advisory board of LUMC Research Facility Data Analytics.
  13. 2021-present: Member LUMC Ph.D. guidance committee for C. Li (RADI), V. van der Valk (RADI), S. Bagcik (BDS), D. Lyu (RADI).
    14.

Oppositions (28)

  1. W. Wang (UM, 22/05/2025). Categorical Data Embedding (prof. M. Dumontier, S. Bromuri).
  2. S. de Vries (UU, 15/05/2025). Overcoming Label Limitations: Leveraging Unlabelled Data and Label Uncertainty to Enhance Classification Models (prof. G. Barkema, D. Thierens).
  3. T. Seinen (EMC, 15/04/2025). Valuing Clinical Text: From information extraction to predictive modeling (prof. P. Rijnbeek, J. Kors).
  4. Z. Yang (LIACS, 26/02/2025). Enhancing Autonomy and Efficiency in Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning (prof. A. Plaat, T. Moerland, M. Preuss).
  5. R. Murphy (AMC, 27/01/2025). Adverse drug event detection in Intensive Care Unit electronic health record data - Using natural language processing in Dutch clinical text (prof. A. Abu-Hanna, prof N. de Keizer, J. Klopotowska, I. Calixto).
  6. R. Butz (OU, 12/12/2024). Enhancing Medical Decision Making with Bayesian Networks: A Journey into Interpretability and User Perception (prof. H. van Ditmarsch, prof R. Helms, A. Hommersom).
  7. M. van Buchem (LUMC, 11/12/2024). Natural Language Processing in Healthcare: Applications and Value (prof E. Steyerberg, I. Kant, M. Bauer).
  8. D. Misoo Kim (Universidad de Murcia, 3/10/2024). Simulation and Visualization of Spatial-Temporal Data in Hospital Infection Outbreaks (dr. D. Manuel Campos Martínez, dr. José Manuel Juárez Herrero).
  9. L. Yang (LIACS, 20/9/2024). Information-theoretic Partition-based Models for Interpretable Machine Learning (dr. M. van Leeuwen, prof. A. Plaat).
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