Work Experience

Next to my regular full-time professional positions, this section also lists my ancillary activities.

Professional experience [ ^ ]

present-2020: Full professor Advanced Data Science in Population Health, Leiden University, Leiden.

My dual fulltime appointment at Leiden University consists of a 0.67 fte appointment at the department of Public Health & Primary Care (PHEG) of the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) and a 0.33 fte contract at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) of the faculty of Science (FWN). See my academic profile for more information.

2020-2019: Associate professor Applied Data Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht.

I have been working as an associate professor with ius promovendi in the Natural Language Processing (NLP) research group in the Information and Computing Sciences (ICS) department at the Science faculty of Utrecht University (UU) in The Netherlands. My Senior Research Qualification (SKOz) portfolio showcases my research leadership: SKOz Portfolio - Marco Spruit.pdf. It positions Applied Data Science as an independent research discipline and discusses current research challenges and future research directions in Applied Data Science based on my two position papers (Spruit & Jagesar, 2016; Spruit & Lytras, 2018). Then, I reconstruct my personal research journey and summarise my main scientific contributions thus far. Finally, I formulate the following research objective for the coming years: I want to establish and lead an authoritative national infrastructure for Dutch natural language processing and machine learning to democratise self-service data science. My Senior Teaching Qualification (SKOw) portfolio showcases my educational leadership: SKOw Portfolio - Marco Spruit.pdf. It notably reports on two key curiculum development projects, CURE and ADS, as supporting evidence. First, I have developed and supervised the major CUrriculum REvision (CURE) of the Information Science bachelor programme at Utrecht University. Second, I co-created the master&apo;s profile Applied Data Science at GSNS and GSLS. Furthermore, I co-authored the certification application for the MSc Applied Data Science Postgraduate programme. Other achievements include two funded iterations of my Curriculum and Course Planner (CURP) app education strategy, research papers on education, and my organisational role as education manager Information Science, among others. Finally, in 2014 I completed the biyearly Educational Leadership programme, provided by the Center of Excellence in University Teaching (CEUT).

2018-2007: Assistant professor Information Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht.

From 2007 until 2018 I have worked as an assistant professor in the Organisation & Information research group at the Information and Computing Sciences (ICS) department in the Science faculty. Please see above for more information.

2007-2003: Ph.D researcher, Meertens Instituut & University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

As an external Ph.D student of the University of Amsterdam I worked in the Language variation group of the Meertens Institute at the crossroads of syntactic variation and dialectometry as a data scientist. My Ph.D research activities can be categorised with keywords like cross-platform software development in C++, exploring data analytics techniques such as multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis, regression analysis, residual analysis, rule induction, and data mining. My promotores were prof. Hans Bennis (UvA) and prof. John Nerbonne (RuG); prof. Sjef Barbiers (UL) acted as my daily supervisor.

2006-2000: Product software developer and entrepreneur, Wizzer, Amsterdam.

As co-founder and backoffice brains I was responsible for the design, development, deployment and maintenance of custom solutions for SMEs in C++, such as a series of real estate appraisal programmes with particularly advanced data entry and printing facilities (including TAX 2002, BOG 2003, AOG 2005), and a complete workflow information management system for the staffing and employee services sector.

2001-1997: Product software developer/entrepreneur, Insertable Objects, Amsterdam.

As an entrepreneurial product software developer I specialised in designing and implementing plug-and-play ActiveX software components and custom solutions in C++, such as components for full-text search information retrieval, natural language processing libraries using file filters and noise word lists, and information infrastructure objects for database-independent access. Other projects included a multimedia cd-rom production as part of a new history method for prepatory higher education schools, and a webserver component for ip-address to geographical location mapping of website visitors.

2001-1995: Editor of Personal Computer Magazine, VNU Business Publications, Amsterdam.

Throughout seven years I have contributed to the Dutch and Belgian Personal Computer Magazines (PCM) as a freelance editor on new technologies and platforms, software development environments, relational and object-oriented databases, and multimedia products.

1997-1995: Big Data system developer, Royal Dutch Navy, Amsterdam.

As a lieutenant in the military intelligence unit I analysed and designed big data natural language processing systems and maintained the developer network as well. I created, tested and maintained technological and scientific programmes as well as the logical and physical structures of very large data sets.

1995-1993: Application programmer, ZyLAB Europe and MSC Information Retrieval Technologies, Amsterdam.

I co-developed natural language processing services such as ZyINDEX for Internet (C++ CGI) as well as custom software for a materials resource planning (MRP) implementation and a management information system (MIS) for wholesale food distribution (Clipper MS-DOS).

Ancillary activities [ ^ ]

present-2010: Owner, Spru IT B.V., Utrecht.

As a moonlighting entrepreneur I provide ICT advices and masterclasses on demand. Its original aim was to be the spin-off to valorise my academic ICT innovations, e.g. STRIPA, SMESEC and GEIGER. In 2023 Spru IT B.V. co-founded cyberGEIGER GmbH to provide integrated training, tooling and user community for non-IT professionals such as physicians, accountants, students and startups to assess, plan and support data protection.

2021-2015: Board member, mijnIBDcoach foundation, Woerden.

As a member of the board of the mijnIBDcoach foundation I have supervised the ICT aspects regarding this e-Health solution for patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

2015-2011: Board member, Regiobibliotheek Z-O-U-T, Doorn.

As a member of the supervisory board of the County Library of South East Utrecht specializing in ICT innovation, I have acted as a sparring partner and supervisor of the executive board on issues related to e-participation, knowledge management, and more.

2014-2010: Chairman, D66 Wijdemeren, Wijdemeren.

As chairman of the Democrats branche in the municipality of Wijdemeren, my overarching strategic objective has been to further professionalise the organisation through community building, and by establishing codification practices to secure the tacit knowledge for future political generations.