Van Ostadestraat 37, 5613 GP Eindhoven
06-54356564
monique.hendriks.84@gmail.com
https://www.monique-hendriks.nl
I am passionate about searching for unlikely connections: between people, disciplines, concepts and words. As a research scientist and creative writer/performer I have a strong creative mindset, while my education in Computer Science & Engineering and Cognitive psychology also gave me a strong analytical mindset. As a research scientist I am specialized in interaction with Artificial Intelligence. As a creative writer I’m a successful slam poet, I have published two novels and am working on new literary concepts such as 3D poetry and multimedia stories. Creative environments where there is attention for both strengths as well as weaknesses of human beings and where there is time and space for experimenting and figuring out details make me happy.
My life has been characterised by a wide interest, in which nevertheless, as can be deduced from this CV, two binding factors can be discovered:
These are the two main themes in my life that fuel my ambition. Creative environments where there is attention for both strengths as well as weaknesses of human beings and where there is time and space for experimenting and figuring out details make me happy.
Through the course of my life, my interests, education and experience have transformed that ambition into the following skills and expertise:
In my work, I like to exploit these skills and expertise optimally and develop them further, but I’m also open for new experiences and challenges in line with the two factors I have mentioned earlier.
As a creative writer and performer, I write poetry, short stories and novels and work on new literary concepts beyond the page. I create short poetry movie clips and audio experiences. I have a lot of acting experience on the stage. I create and perform theatrical concepts related to my writing and am the 2021 Dutch National Poetry Slam Champion. My focus is on inspiring the use of our imagination to feel a sense of connection to others, and to use our imagination to combat the increasing polarisation in our society. My ambition is to grow my audience beyond readers and poetry lovers through breaking the borders between creative disciplines and collaborating with other artists.
I am currently one of the spoken word talents selected for the UC Masters program. In this program, self-made talents in several urban culture disciplines receive support to shape their own development program during a 2 year trajectory. My focus during this development trajectory is on multidisciplinary work including theatre, video, dance, voice, poetry, story telling and visual art. I intend to develop myself as a multidisciplinary maker as well as collaboration partner.
My ambition as a writer is to go beyond the page and beyond the standard spoken word performance. Examples of this are my intentions to create a theatre performance with elements of poetry, physical performance and dance as well as a spoken word clown act. Furthermore, I am currently working on concepts for taking stories and poetry beyond the page through using multimedia storytelling elements. My vision is to inspire the use of imagination with my work. Contemporary literature shows a shift towards realism, demonstrated in the popularity of non-fiction books as well as a focus on personal struggle in poetry and spoken word. While this is of course relevant work, in my opinion one of our human strengths lies in the capacity to imagine a future that is different from today and to imagine ourselves in the shoes of another. As such, imagination can be the driver to combat increasing polarisation and help us to envision potential future consequences of our behaviors today (e.g. with respect to the environmental challenges we face). This drives me to strive for a stronger spark of imagination for my audience, as well as to broaden my audience beyond the spoken word and reader scene by breaking the borders between creative disciplines and collaborating with other artists.
With the UC Masters program, I intend to further develop my acting skill, focusing specifically also on camera acting, but also different ways of training my body and voice as well as developing myself as a strong partner for multi-disciplinary collaborations. The latter, I will do through developing a stonger basis in
As a research scientist, I have an education in Cognitive Science as well as Computer Science and Engineering. I started working at Philips research in 2011.
I am currently working on user interaction with clinical decision support (CDS) in the intensive care unit (ICU) in the context of a PhD trajectory together with Máxima Medical Centre and TU/e.
My ambition is to come up with a design for a CDS system in the ICU that supports collaboration among physician and CDS to improve the decision-making process with special emphasis on the physician's reasoning process as well as the fit within the ICU environment and the team dynamics in this environment.
In the past, I have worked on motivating people to make lifestyle changes through technology, helping cancer patients to understand their condition and make informed decisions together with the physician and making predictive models for treatment and diagnosis in oncology.
In 2010 I received two Master of Science degrees after finishing a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven:
As a student, I was involved in several committees of GEWIS, the study association for mathematics and computer science students of the TU/e. In 2005/2006, I was the vice-president of the board of this study association. I was involved in organising the National Computer Science Conference, a collaboration among several study associations of computer science throughout the Netherlands. I was involved in organising the introduction week for mathematics and computer science students. I was a student member of the faculty council. I wrote a column and articles for Cursor, the university news paper of the TU/e. I was involved in the development of a theatre show for promoting the computer science degree. I was a student assistant, involved in supporting several classes and informing high school students about the degree of computer science. And finally, I did scouting for recruitment agency YER.
As of September 2019, I am a user interaction research scientist at Philips Research and involved in the initiation of a cognitive engineering research team. My personal expertise and ambition can be found in the area of interaction with Artificial Intelligence, more specifically in the area of clinical decision support. I have built up knowledge about human judgment, naturalistic decision-making and reasoning under uncertainty and use that knowledge to develop decision support tooling tailored to the ways in which humans take decisions.I am doing this research as part of a PhD trajectory within the Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center (e/MTIC), a collaboration between Philips, Máxima Medical Centre and the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e).
In my research into user interaction with AI in the intensive care unit, my ambition is to come up with a concrete concept for Clinical Decision Support that supports human-machine collaboration by facilitating the incorporation of facts and data-driven learnings provided by an AI algorithm into the human reasoning process. The idea is to provide support in the reasoning where machine reasoning surpasses human reasoning, while facilitating exploitation of human reasoning strengths such as holistic reasoning, flexibility and empathy.
The CDS concept should be value-aware, actively supporting the medical staff in considering tradeoffs in human values in the care of their patients. The envisioned concept uses a conversational AI approach to enable the CDS to become value-aware and story structures to help the user integrate facts and data-driven learnings provided by the CDS with their own value judgemetns in a natural way.
An important question that needs to be answered during the trajectory of this research is: How will we measure the success of a value-aware, conversational and narrative CDS? In order to know whether the decision-making process has improved, we need to understand the values that are involved, both the professional values of the physician as well as the personal values of the patient and to balance them with society’s values. We need to define some measure of balance among the utilitarian and the deontological perspective in medical decision-making.
A more in depth decription of my research proposal can be found in this Frontiers publication
I am a scientist, writer, actrice and theatre maker. I love to search for unlikely connections: between people, disciplines, concepts and words. Due to my versatile background, I speak the languages of different disciplines, which enables me to bring expertises together and to see opportunities that pass the borders of the separate disciplines.
As scientist, I work from a background education in computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive science, but I also use my expertise as a creative writer and actrice to think about the future of human interaction with Artificial Intelligence, for example by using storytelling and investigating the role of the human body in said interaction. In my work, I bring together doctors (the end users), ethicists, data analysts and designers to come to a solution that secures the human values in the interaction with machines.
As a writer, actrice and theatre maker I have always focussed on the vulnerability and the fallibility of being human. My main topics of exploration are the fluidity of identity: how we continuously change by what happens around us and how little control we actually have over our own actions and our existence.
In 2014 I made a theatre show on this topic: Symptomen. In this show, I investigated my role as a victim of bullying in the system of bullying at high school. I have played this show for high school students. After seeing my show, the students participated in workshops offered by Stichting Carte Blanche.
In the second round of the finals of the Dutch national championship Poetry slam in 2020, I performed a piece in which I take my audience on a tour through the unrest that I experienced in my home and in my head during the lock-down.
In the first round, I bring an ode to mothers who are just a little bit too caring, who forget about themselves so much that their children never learn to take care of themselves.
In the poetry film Tast zin, I search for a translation of what my senses experience to who I am. How do my perceptions influence my identity? Is there even something like an identity if a series of perceptions can give me the feeling that there is no room for a self?
In Vooroordelen over de dood I investigate to what extent memories have a right to exist. How long should I hold on to them? Do I owe it to them to hold on? How long can I keep that up?
Quarantaine is a reflection on judgement. What happens if we are able to let go of judgement? Do we dare to make ourselves vulnerable, to risk that we will be hurt for a chance to feel truly loved?
With musician Sybren van Doesem, singer-songwriter Iris Penning and presentor Wordbits, I explore the vulnerability and confusion which make us human in Plotscast #15. This podcast is a recording of a live and mostly improvised interplay between Sybren, Iris en myself.
Both in my role as scientist as well as in my role as writer, actrice and theatre maker, I have initiated a development to fight for showing vulnerability and using imaginatino. In Western Culture, we find it important to demonstrate confidence and to stick to our principles no matter what. In such a culture, I would love to see us face the things that we do not understand. As a vulnerable scientist, I would like to show that there is a lot that I do not understand. Recognizing what you do not understand is the first step towards finding new opportunities. The second step is to search for answers, not only by collecting data, but also by using our imagination to create a story. The third step is to start experimenting based on that story. This third step again requires vulnerability and an open mind. In a time where we are continuously overloaded with information and where everying is fast, flashing and loud, it is extremely difficult to find the time, tranquility and the space to nurture our vulnerability and imagination. Therefore, I want to experiment with combinations of digital and physical media: by grabbing attention in the digital space, I want to create curiosity so that my audience moves into a physical space where the story is continued, in a tangible and slower manifestation. Such a physical manifestation generates mental space and allows for a level of concentration that is more fit to reflect. The first step that I am taking, is to present my poetry not only in performances and videos, but also in a 3D View-Master. I have asked visual artist Lilia Scheerder to make the images in this project. This sketch is an example of the combination of text and image that we envision. When this design is presented in the View-Master, the text will pop out in front of the image and there are 3D layers in the image as well.
Podcast series De Verloren Tijd (Lost Time) challenged me to create an audio piece inspired by a sound clip. (Spoken in Dutch)
In Te ver (too far), I left my comfort zone (before this, my photo archive contained just five selfies) and I used selfies to reflect on how judgement plays a role in my life. How do I let judgement of others influence me and what does my own judgement cause in others?
I wrote Wat als? as a first reaction on the lock-down. I read and heard stories of people who experienced the lock-down as an impuls to slow down. This is a development that is in line with my wish for the future of humanity. However, in myself I noticed a development that was going in the other direction. For me, this has been a very restless period. The place where I could always find tranquility - home - was all of a sudden turned into a place where it seemed impossible to ever find peace again. It became my office, cafeteria, sports club, bar and workshop space. A seemingly endless stream of packages was initiated. Neighbors argued all day. And every moment of the day someone, somewhere, was talking to a screen.
I wrote this text based on music by Jordi de Backer.
In the movie 'Boter, Kaas en Wetenschap' (Butter, cheese and science*), I explicitly connect my role as a scientist to my role as an artist for the first time. Boter, Kaas en Wetenschap is an exploration of how art and science battle each other in the search for thé truth. Sophie and Alan play a game. Alan tries to win by following the rules, Sophie by changing them.
I made this movie for ILFU Fringe and in collaboration with filmmaker Bob Schellens and actor Johnny Mirer.
*Butter, chees and eggs is the literal translation of the Dutch term for Tic-Tac-Toe
In the workshop New Media & Performance, I worked on a prototype of the installation Speculum, together with students of AKV St. Joost and Avans and under supervision of Noud Heerkens. Speculum is a reflection on how we deal with attention for each other and for ourselves in the digital age.
Video-editing by Matija Pekić.
For the Center Humans and Technology, I wrote the short story Furniture love about the role of technology in the post-Covid future era.
In the project Windows to the World, under supervision of Jasper van Es, I created designs for text to be painted on windows in the city center of Eindhoven, together with sign painters Niels Bakkerus and Guy Verbeek. Niels painted a text about vacancy of buildings due to the rise of online shopping on the vacant building that used to house the Hema store. Niels and Guy collaborated on the painting of a text about the connecting role of music above the entrance of the Dynamo building.