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Meet

our Mentors

Welcome to the heart of the DDSA Mentoring Programme – our dedicated mentors. As we prepare for the third edition of our programme, we invite you to meet the inspiring individuals guiding our mentees on their data science journeys. Our mentors come from diverse backgrounds, including students, data scientists, professors, and professionals, all united by their passion for fostering growth within Denmark’s data science community.

To make the most of our mentor profiles, use the search field to find specific skills such as ‘NLP’, ‘life science’, ‘teamwork’, and more. This feature allows you to connect with mentors who have the expertise you’re interested in, making it easier to navigate through our rich spectrum of knowledge and experience. Explore, learn, and connect with the future leaders of data science through the DDSA Mentoring Programme. 

Jessica Hjaltelin

Position: Associate Professor
Categories: Mentors 2026/2027
Location: Region Hovedstaden, University of Copenhagen

Background

I am Associate Professor and group leader of the Hjaltelin Lab at the University of Copenhagen, where I lead interdisciplinary research at the intersection of artificial intelligence, health data science, and precision medicine. My research focuses on large-scale longitudinal healthcare data, disease trajectories, and early disease detection. I have extensive experience supervising PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scientists, and I am actively engaged in teaching, international collaborations, and career development activities within academia.

Motivation

I would like to contribute as mentor since I have benefited greatly from mentorship throughout my own academic career, particularly during career transitions and the establishment of my independent research group. I enjoy supporting early-career researchers in navigating academic challenges, exchanging research ideas, building collaborations, and balancing scientific ambitions with career development. Through my experience in interdisciplinary research, grant writing, supervision, and leadership, I hope to help create a supportive environment and network for young researchers.

Skills, expertise and interests

  • Academic writing
  • Data analytics
  • Digitalisation
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Data modelling
  • Deep learning
  • Machine learning

Jessica Hjaltelin

Associate Professor

Background I am Associate Professor and group leader of the...

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John Shorter

Position: Associate Professor
Categories: Mentors 2026/2027
Location: Roskilde University

Background

I’m an Associate Professor of Biomedical Data Science at Roskilde University. My research applies statistical genetics and register-based epidemiology to psychiatric and pharmacogenetic questions, using the Danish national health registers, the UK Biobank, and DBDS. I work mainly in R on HPC, running genome-wide association studies and building polygenic risk scores.

Motivation

I came to university as a history major with no sense of what graduate school, a PhD, or a research career involved. A hands-on bachelor project changed that. My supervisor took the time to show me how research works and where it could lead, and her guidance is the reason I became a scientist at all. Now I want to be that mentor for students who can’t yet see where a science degree might take them.

Skills, expertise and interests

  • Data analytics
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Data management
  • Statistics and mathematics
  • Data modelling

John Shorter

Associate Professor

Background I’m an Associate Professor of Biomedical Data Science at...

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Juan Rodriguez

Position: Assistant professor
Categories: Mentors 2026/2027
Location: Aalborg University, Region Nordjylland

Background

I am Juan Manuel Rodriguez, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Aalborg University, Denmark. I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering, and I have over 15 years of experience in teaching and research. My academic work sits at the intersection of applied machine learning, deep learning, and data engineering. My research spans several active areas, including recommender systems, misinformation detection in social media, multi-modal models, and other applications of ML.

Motivation

My motivation for applying to the DDSA mentorship program stems from a genuine passion for supporting the growth of early-career researchers and data scientists. Over the past year, I have had the rewarding experience of supervising a mentee through the program, a journey that is now coming to a successful close, and which has reinforced how meaningful and impactful a well-structured mentoring relationship can be. It is also an opportunity for future networking as knowing new people can bring opportunities in the future.

Skills, expertise and interests

  • Academic writing
  • Data analytics
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Natural Language Processing
  • Text analysis
  • Deep learning
  • Machine learning

Juan Rodriguez

Assistant professor

Background I am Juan Manuel Rodriguez, an Assistant Professor of...

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