JADS student Cees Maessen wins Unilever Research Prize 2024
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What a fantastic achievement! We’re proud to share that JADS student Cees Maessen has been awarded the prestigious Unilever Research Prize 2024 for his exceptional Master’s thesis: “Label efficient pear quality sorting: Self-supervised learning in action.”
Celebrating outstanding contributions to global goals
This annual prize celebrates the brightest Master’s students from Dutch universities, recognizing outstanding research that contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals. Cees’ work, which addresses SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, was one of 13 winning projects celebrated during a special ceremony at Unilever’s Global Foods Innovation Centre ‘Hive’ in Wageningen.
Cool stuff that matters, with data
Cees’ work exemplifies everything JADS stands for: “We do cool stuff that matters, with data.” His research tackled the challenge of sorting pears with AI as part of the Smart Pears project in collaboration with Artificial Intelligence Zeeland (ARINZE). By using cutting-edge self-supervised learning techniques, Cees reduced the need for human-labelled data while ensuring AI systems could grade pears with precision—crucial for reducing food waste and maximizing growers’ revenue.
Hands-on innovation
But what makes Cees’ story extra special is his hands-on approach. From setting up cameras and building cloud pipelines to testing conveyor belts (and sourcing pears for evaluation!), Cees showed what it means to combine deep technical expertise with real-world problem-solving.
Reflecting on success
Reflecting on this milestone, Cees shared: “Winning this prize is a wonderful way to conclude two transformative years at JADS. Conducting research at Artificial Intelligence Zeeland to bring state-of-the-art AI to pear sorting was both a challenge and a joy. A big thank you to René Slabbekoorn for his support at Artificial Intelligence Zeeland, and to Rogier Brussee for both the nomination and support!”
A longstanding tradition
Each student who received the Unilever Research Prize 2024 was awarded a cheque for €2,500 and a special piece of artwork called ‘the helping hand’. This year’s ceremony also celebrated Unilever’s long-standing relationship with the academic world, now in its 68th year. Inspiring talks by experts in AI highlighted how breakthroughs in science and technology can help solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
