In 2020 I founded SignLab Amsterdam, with the ambition to leverage recent advances in artificial intelligence, computer vision and computer graphics to add new computational and applied dimensions to the long tradition of theoretical sign language research at the University of Amsterdam. Our team includes both deaf and hearing researchers, with diverse backgrounds and types of expertise. Our research agenda is driven by fundamental scientific and technological challenges but also by urgent societal issues. We collaborate with several non-academic organisations to maximise the societal impact of our work.

Some interviews in popular media

- Brengt avatar doven en horenden dichter bij elkaar?, TV item, 10 minutes, in Dutch
- What happens if you grow up without language?, ILLC blogpost, 2 minutes reading, in English
- Dove kinderen en hun ouders hebben meer gebarentaalaanbod nodig, VHZ interview, 10 minutes reading, in Dutch
- Taalwetenschapper pleit voor meer aandacht voor dove kinderen, TV news item, 4 minutes, in Dutch
- Leer dove kinderen en hun ouders gebarentaal, Radio interview, 57 minutes, in Dutch

Truth-conditional semantics

It is a commonplace idea that a child has learned the meaning of a sentence like ''The book is on the table'' if it can tell whether the sentence is true or false in any given situation. This truth-conditional notion of meaning has been very fruitful but also has clear limitations. Namely, while declarative sentences can be judged true or false in a given situation, this does not hold for other types of sentences, such as questions.