Touska originally came from a background in electrical engineering, but one project stayed with her: artificial intelligence. It was more than just an interest—it became a passion. She did not only want to use tools, but truly understand how they work, down to the level of mathematics and research. ‘The AI master’s program at the UvA appealed to me because of its research culture, the international environment, and because the program offered exactly what I was looking for: depth, challenge, and real learning experiences,’ she says. 

The mathematics behind the machine learning

Those first months in Amsterdam were intense. Touska dove straight into the mathematics behind machine learning, probabilistic models, and modern AI architectures such as transformer networks (the smart structures behind highly accurate language and vision models). Student life meant long days and tight deadlines—but also a great sense of fulfillment. She worked on a project that detects industrial emissions from images and discovered a new passion there: computer vision with uncertainty-aware models. 

Qualcomm fellowship: financial peace of mind and new opportunities 

One of the biggest turning points was fellowship itself. The Qualcomm in AI Fellowships consist of two grants of €10,000 each, supporting young women in AI so they can pursue their studies without financial stress. The fellowships are administered by the UvA Fund and include mentoring by experienced Qualcomm AI engineers. The funding truly made a difference. As fellow recipient Isabella Gardner previously said: 
‘The fellowship really saved me; I can now focus much better on my studies.’ 

The same applies to Touska: with financial support, she was able to stay afloat and fully focus on learning, research, and personal growth. Michael Hofman, Senior Director, Engineering at Qualcomm, adds: ‘We are very happy to hear that our financial support as well as mentoring could make a difference in her professional career.’ 

From theory to thesis 

In her second year, Touska chose to gain hands-on research experience through a project at ASML, a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing technology. The project explored how artificial intelligence can be applied to lithography metrology, which is the process of measuring and analyzing microscopic patterns on semiconductor wafers to ensure manufacturing precision. This research formed the basis of her Master’s thesis and was recently accepted to ICLR 2026, a widely recognized and highly influential top-tier conference in machine learning, which will be held this year in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 

The next chapter 

Now that she has completed her master’s degree, Touska is looking ahead to the next chapter—whether that will be a role in research, machine learning engineering, or AI development: ‘I’m inspired by the rapidly evolving world of AI and want to keep building new tools and ideas that truly make a difference.’