# Florian Sense

> Researcher working at the intersection of computational cognitive science, applied machine learning, and language assessment. Focus: how people learn complex skills (especially a second language) and how to build systems that support learning at scale. Currently a senior data scientist contracting through Infinite Tactics on an Air Force Research Laboratory program for adaptive foreign-language training, and co-supervising PhD work at the University of Groningen.

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## Site

- [Home](https://www.floriansense.com/): overview, current work, and recent publications.
- [What I do](https://www.floriansense.com/what-i-do/): detailed breakdown of research and consulting areas, selected work, and side projects.
- [Selected papers](https://www.floriansense.com/papers/): eight representative publications with summaries, grouped by theme.
- [About](https://www.floriansense.com/about/): background, education, and personal notes.

## Work areas

- Applied NLP for language assessment: proficiency-level classification (ILR/CEFR/ACTFL), readability modeling, automated scoring; primarily Arabic and English, often with limited training data.
- LLM infrastructure and content generation: structured-output pipelines (Pydantic schemas, tool-use, prompt-based fallbacks), evaluation frameworks, and deployment into constrained/government compute environments.
- Computational models of learning and memory: knowledge tracing, forgetting curves, the Predictive Performance Equation, spacing effects, and adaptive scheduling for intelligent tutoring systems.
- Curriculum and assessment design at scale: decomposing outcomes into measurable can-do indicators and mapping them onto proficiency frameworks.

## Key facts

- Name: Florian Sense
- Role: Independent researcher / senior data scientist (freelance and contract since 2019).
- Affiliations: Infinite Tactics (contractor) on an Air Force Research Laboratory program; co-supervises PhD projects at the University of Groningen.
- Education: PhD in psychology (University of Groningen, 2017), supervised by Hedderik van Rijn and Rob R. Meijer; thesis "Making the Most of Human Memory" (https://osf.io/duzya/).
- Location: near Ovar, central Portugal.
- Side projects: Picolingo (European Portuguese learning app, https://www.picolingo.app/) and PaZuFa (open-source civic tech, https://codeberg.org/PaZuFa).

## Contact and profiles

- Email: floriansense@gmail.com
- Google Scholar (full publication list): https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=e38VtRgAAAAJ