PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Wessel Kraaij

Wessel Kraaij is a professor of Applied Data Analytics at Leiden University and a principal scientist at TNO whose information retrieval work covers text, video and sensor data. He helped start the TRECVID video retrieval benchmark at NIST in 2001 and became its scientific co-coordinator in 2003. After a 2004 PhD at the University of Twente on language modeling for information retrieval, he served as a professor by special appointment at Radboud University from 2008 to 2016 and joined Leiden's LIACS in March 2016. ACM named him a Distinguished Member in 2017, and in 2018 he shared the IEEE Computer Society PAMI Mark Everingham Prize with Alan Smeaton, Paul Over and George Awad for the TRECVid datasets and workshops. In June 2026, a project of his on patient-generated health data was among those awarded Dutch Research Council funding.

Badges

Timeline

  1. Since 1995

    Principal scientist at TNO

    He becomes a principal scientist at TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, in 1995. His text retrieval work covers models for topic detection and tracking, cross-language retrieval and summarization.

  2. 2001–2003

    Starting and coordinating TRECVID

    In 2001, he helps start TRECVID, the NIST video retrieval evaluation, with Paul Over and Alan Smeaton. In 2003, he becomes its scientific co-coordinator together with Smeaton, while Over and George Awad manage the project from NIST.

  3. 2004

    A PhD on language modeling

    He earns his PhD at the University of Twente in June 2004 with the thesis Variations on Language Modeling for Information Retrieval, supervised by F.M.G. de Jong. The thesis treats queries and documents as instances of a unigram language model.

  4. 2008–2016

    Special professor at Radboud

    From 2008 to 2016, he is professor by special appointment at Radboud University, with the chair title Information filtering and aggregation.

  5. March 2016

    Professor at Leiden

    He joins the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) in March 2016 as professor of Applied Data Analytics. The appointment lets him build a data science collaboration between Leiden University and TNO.

  6. 2017

    An ACM Distinguished Member

    ACM names him one of its 43 Distinguished Members in 2017, the only one from the Netherlands, for his contributions to the field of information retrieval.

  7. 2018

    Everingham Prize and Leiden directorship

    He shares the 2018 IEEE Computer Society PAMI Mark Everingham Prize with Alan Smeaton, Paul Over and George Awad for the TRECVid Video Retrieval Evaluation 2003-2018 datasets and workshops. In March 2018, he also becomes director of Leiden University's Data Science Research Programme, succeeding Joost Kok.

  8. As of October 2026

    Leiden professor and TNO scientist

    He is professor of Applied Data Analytics at LIACS, a member of the Society, Artificial Intelligence and Life Sciences (SAILS) programme, and a TNO principal scientist for data analytics, working on unstructured information such as text, video and sensor data. In June 2026, his project on connecting patient-driven infrastructures for citizen-generated data is among those awarded Dutch Research Council (NWO) funding, with him as main applicant.

Career

  1. Since 2016Leiden UniversityProfessor of Applied Data Analytics
  2. Since 1995Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific ResearchPrincipal scientist
  3. 2008–2016Radboud University NijmegenProfessor by special appointment

Education

  1. 2004University of TwentePhD

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Leiden University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Leiden University. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Leiden University. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Leiden University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Wessel Kraaij yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Wessel Kraaij director of Data Science Research Programme - Leiden University universiteitleiden.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Wessel Kraaij - Leiden University universiteitleiden.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Wessel Kraaij recognized as Distinguished Member of the ACM for outstanding contributions to computing - Leiden University universiteitleiden.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Wessel Kraaij jointly wins the Mark Everingham prize for TRECVid - Leiden University universiteitleiden.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. George Awad Received the 2018 IEEE Computer Society PAMI Mark Everingham Prize | NIST nist.gov. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Variations on language modeling for information retrieval - University of Twente Research Information research.utwente.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Wessel Kraaij benoemd tot hoogleraar Applied Data Analytics - Universiteit Leiden universiteitleiden.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Alan Smeaton jointly wins the IEEE Computer Society Mark Everingham prize | Dublin City University dcu.ie. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Grant for projects that help researchers harness data and technology - Leiden University universiteitleiden.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.