Mastering the art of adaptivity
Both in her research and in her career, Judith Masthoff, professor of Interaction Technology at Utrecht University, takes an adaptive approach. It brought her from industry to academia, from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom and back, and from working on automated teachers and adaptive radiology devices to developing tailor-made systems for behavioral change.
Was it a deliberate choice to pursue a career in computer science?
‘Not at first, no. In fact, I was the first in my family to go to university, and I had no idea what science was. When I started college in 1988, computer science was still very new. I could just as easily have studied French or Chemistry; I had finished secondary school with four sciences and four languages. In the end, I chose computer science because I enjoyed solving puzzles. During my studies, I ended up at the Institute for Perception Research (IPO), where they had a PhD position on a subject I had experimented with on my own before: computers in education. Back in secondary school, I had written some programs– for example, to help learn vocabulary faster, so I already had some affinity with the subject, and I decided to apply. That’s how I more or less organically became a scientist.’
Soon after obtaining your PhD, you moved to England. How did that come about?
‘IPO was a collaboration between the university and Philips. During my PhD, I was on the university side. When my then-boyfriend – later my husband – lost his job after Philips stopped its Natural Language Processing research, he found a position in England. I went with him and found a job at Philips Research in the UK, where I spent three years working on adaptive interfaces for medical systems. Then a position came up in Brighton, at a former polytechnic, similar to our universities of applied sciences. There, I taught a lot of courses, supervised students, and squeezed in my research at night. Later, when my husband got a job in Aberdeen, I followed him again and spent 14 years at the University of Aberdeen.’
Why did you decide to come back to the Netherlands?
‘In Aberdeen, I quickly moved into academic management – first as head of department, then head of the graduate school of the College of Physical Sciences, and eventually founding dean of the university-wide postgraduate research school. In the end, I had two demanding jobs at once, and had very little time for doing my own research. When, almost simultaneously, I received two approaches from the Netherlands to come back, it was clear that if we ever wanted to return, this was the time. This time my husband followed me; he also worked at Utrecht University, until his recent retirement. Utrecht University solving our two-body problem is why it now has an outstanding Natural Language Processing group.’
What is your current research about?
‘My group in Utrecht works on a wide range of human-centered computing topics aiming to design novel interaction technologies for intelligent systems. In my own research the golden thread that connects them is personalization: the automatic adaptation of systems to users. The key question we try to answer in different application domains is how to tailor information and interactions to (groups of) users and their context. We look at things like adaptive e-learning and emotional support; digital behavior change interventions; explanations and fairness in recommender systems; design and evaluation methods for adaptive systems; and intelligent user interfaces for the medical domain.’
Masthoff returned to the Netherlands in 2018 after having spent over twenty years in the UK. There, she started working for Philips Research, to subsequently move to academia as Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton. In 2004, Masthoff joined the University of Aberdeen, where she held positions of (senior) lecturer, Head of Computing Science, Head of the Graduate School of the College of Physical Sciences, full professor, and Dean of the University Graduate School. Masthoff obtained a Ir (comparable to MEng) (1992) and PhD (1997) degree in Computing from Eindhoven University of Technology. She is Editor-in-Chief of the User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction journal
How did this broad research focus come about?
‘My current group brings together many subjects I have worked on myself during my career.
My PhD research was about creating a virtual teacher that could teach any subject. Personalization was key, as the teacher had to adapt to each student’s prior knowledge and learning pace. At Philips, I shifted to medical systems for radiology, focusing on interfaces tailored to user needs. In that medical environment, we also looked at multimodal control. For example, when instruments have to be kept sterile, it may help to use voice control.
At Brighton, we had a master’s program in interactive television management and production. I started a related study on learning through interactive TV. At that time, most households still had a single TV in the living room, typically watched by the whole family together. This naturally led to the concept of group adaptation, which eventually developed into a research line on group recommendations.
In Aberdeen, I was given more time for research, with PhD students on my own topics. Eventually, my research portfolio there moved towards persuasive technology for behavioral change, e.g. making people walk more for better health, use more sustainable forms of transport, or act more securely online.
The funny thing is that most of the research lines we are working on didn’t come from a carefully premediated plan. Instead, with each new project, I try to shape it in a way that appeals most to the researcher involved.
Overall, I am a strong advocate of seizing opportunities as they come, in terms of funding, people, locations or other circumstances – even if they’re not exactly in your comfort zone. In fact, some of my most cited work came from topics I kind of accidentally ended up working on. Nevertheless, I kept the personalization focus.’
As of January 2026, you will join the board of IPN. How did that happen?
‘First of all, I am not the type to focus on research and education alone. So, after having established my group and the Human-Computer Interaction master in Utrecht, I soon moved into management again. I became the research director of Information and Computing Sciences here in Utrecht, mainly because I felt the need to contribute to the gender diversity and the atmosphere of the institute. This year, my colleagues won the NWO Diversity & Inclusion Initiative Award, which is a nice recognition of the progress we have made.
I became a representative of Utrecht University at IPN, and last fall also helped to set up the IPN Special Interest Group Human-Computer Interaction. That is how I initially got involved with IPN. And if I am part of something, I contribute. I think it is important that within IPN, the human-centered computing side is well-represented. And as a nice extra, in the board I’ll be joining Nava Tintarev, who was the first PhD student to graduate under my supervision.’
What is your ambition with IPN?
‘One thing that struck me, is that in the workplace, many people don’t know IPN. We have to change that. I also think that the cooperation between universities can still improve. Especially in these financially uncertain times, it is important that we stand together. One example of good cooperation between different universities, and between computer science and societal partners, is TACIT, a five-year, 3.2 million NWO Perspectief program on the theme of inclusive technology design. We can submit many more joint proposals, even across different SIGs. We can also collaborate more closely on issues that impact us all such as well-being and ethics.
I lead the IPN working group on the well-being of early-career academics. I believe the Special Interest Groups can play an important role there too. Many academics are isolated in their own university, working as the sole specialist in a particular subject. Social and instrumental support from peers is indispensable.
We can also collaborate more on education. Now, the same course is designed multiple times at different universities, with each teacher producing their own slides. That is a waste of time. In education, we pursue the same goals, we are not competitors.
Finally, as a researcher in the field of human-computer interaction, I have always worked closely with people from the humanities and the social sciences. I think that it is imperative for the IPN community to keep in close contact with those fields, since in the end, we need to develop technology that people trust.’
Photo: Sjoerd van der Hucht