Bram Vanroy studied Formal and Computational Linguistics followed by Artificial Intelligence at the KU Leuven in Belgium. During his studies, he became captivated by the possibilities of using computational methods to model and analyse natural language. He obtained his doctorate in experimental linguistics at Ghent University, where he used computational methods to study syntactical issues in translation.
He was employed by the KU Leuven as a postdoctoral researcher in 2022, starting with the European SignON project regarding the automatic translation of sign language. Since 2024, he has been working as a researcher as part of the ERC project headed by Tim Van de Cruys titled TENACITY, which looks into the creative possibilities of neural networks. Bram started working as a part time linguist at the Dutch Language Institute (INT) that same year. His work at the institute is focused on the SSHOC-NL-project, specifically on a task related to data enrichment and the use of linguistic tools. He also supports the INT through his extensive knowledge and experience regarding language models.
Bram’s research lays an emphasis on transparency, replicability and openness. These qualities are also reflected in his role in the open source community, which strives towards the availability of open data, open code and open models.