Group
Research team
This is the group of PhD students and researchers whom I supervise or co-supervise and with whom I work on my research line, across several institutions. Our work includes e-values and anytime-valid inference, multiple testing, pure exploration and related problems in mathematical statistics and machine learning.
PhD students
Aurèle Mingam (started September 2025), Leiden University Medical Center, co-supervised with Jelle Goeman
Rovanos Tsafack Nzanguim (started September 2025), University of Twente, co-supervised with Jelle Goeman
Fabian Damken (started November 2024), University of Twente, co-supervised with Wouter Koolen
Yury Tavyrikov (started September 2023), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, co-supervised with Jelle Goeman
Other supervision
Dante de Roos (supervised by Peter Grünwald, I am co-promotor)
Former students and visitors
Giorgio Micali — PhD completed July 2026 (supervised by Annika Betken; I was promotor)
Ivan Melev — visiting PhD student from LMU Munich, February-May 2026
The Dutch system
In the Netherlands the right to promote candidates to PhD, called the ‘ius promovendi’, is limited to full professors and in some universities as well to a certain subset of associate professors - including me. Each PhD student needs to have at least one such promotor, but they are not necessarily involved in the supervision. This was the case for me with Giorgio: I was not involved in his research projects, but I guided him in writing the thesis. Those who do not have the ius promovendi, but are involved in the supervision of the PhD candidate are called ‘co-promotor’. One can also be called a co-promotor when one does have the ius, was involved in the supervision, but not as main supervisor. This is the case for me with Dante. Lastly, each candidate needs to have at least two (co-)promotores - typically only one of them is involved in the daily supervision, but it happens that both of them are equally involved. This is the case for Aurèle and Rovanos, who are appointed on the M2 project, which is a joint project between Jelle and me.
Statistics group at the University of Twente
I am chair of the Statistics (STAT) research group in Applied Mathematics at the University of Twente. The group develops statistical methodology for new data applications and studies the theoretical foundations of modern statistical and machine-learning methods. The current official member list is maintained on the UT Statistics people page.
Permanent staff
Annika Betken — Assistant Professor
Rianne de Heide — Associate Professor, Chair of Statistics
Wouter Koolen — Full Professor
Katharina Proksch — Researcher (Guest)
Frank Röttger — Assistant Professor
Johannes Schmidt-Hieber — Full Professor
Ashoke Sinha — Lecturer
Postdocs and researchers
Niklas Dexheimer — Researcher
Anna Sepliarskaia — Researcher (Guest)