Meet the local ESRA Committee

A day in the life of Peter Lugtig

Goedemorgen (good morning)! I’m Peter, professor of data quality at the department of Methodology and Statistics. ESRA has always been my feeling like my research “home”, and I am very excited about having my “home” conference at my “home” city of Utrecht. I have been living in Utrecht for the last 20 years and hope that you will get as excited in July about the city as I still am after all those years here.

My morning today (Thursday) started by bringing my daughter Nore to school, and then cycling to work. My cycle route runs through several parks built around old fortresses built around the city. One of these parks that is easy to visit is just opposite the conference venue in the botanical gardens.

Park: Voorveldse polder

For a true Dutch experience, I would recommend you to travel within Utrecht by bike in Utrecht. There are several bike sharing arrangements: “Dott” (formerly Tier) is international and works well for example. I arrive at work around 8:30 on most days, and today I have two main activities. In the morning, I am grading two thesis projects that result from our Master in Methods and Statistics (which is in english, and offers a great programme for students who want to specialize in methods – spread the word!)

From 11:00 o clock, I am spending most of the rest of the working day in meetings. I serve as the head of department, and for that reason often have meetings on organizational matters at the department. Today: a meeting on policies around generative AI in education and research, a meeting with people from Statistics Netherlands to talk about joint research projects we are running, a meeting with the department manager to talk about finances, and finally a meeting with medical researchers with whom I am working on a project integrating survey and mobility data into viral transmission models (useful should we ever get another pandemic).At around 17:30 I cycle back home to cook dinner. After a family dinner, I will go out to see a concert by a folk-singer at Tivoli. This big concert venue hosts around 5 different concerts every day ranging from classical music to very good club nights. It is worth checking out the detailed agenda around ESRA, because it is quite likely there will be some bands you know or like! The venue is in the middle of the city centre, and tickets can be bought on location.

Tivoli concert venue in Utrecht city centre