It is with great sadness that we share the news of the sudden passing of Gosse Bouma, associate professor at the University of Groningen.

One of the things that Gosse liked most was cycling. He died as a result of a terrible crash during an off-road cycling trip.

Gosse was a highly valued researcher, teacher, and colleague. He was a core member of the Alfa Informatica (later Information Science) programme and of the Computational Linguistics group (GroNLP) in Groningen.

He was a highly respected scientist, as evidenced by his widely cited publications, such as those in the fields of computational syntax, Dutch question-answering systems, and the Semantic Web. Moreover, he played a key role in the development of software and annotated corpora. Together with a colleague from Flanders, he authored an influential research report for the Taalunie (Dutch Language Union) that laid the foundation for digital resources for the Dutch language. He also contributed the first resources for Dutch as part of the Universal Dependencies framework.

As a teacher, he mentored many students across Alfa Informatica, Information Science, Cognitive Science, and Artificial Intelligence programmes. He served for a long time as coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s programme in Language and Communication Technologies and supported hundreds of highly talented students as they embarked on their careers.

We have lost a wonderful colleague and friend who with his cheerful, active, and positive nature, was someone others could always rely on.

If you would like to write down memories or your condolences, you are welcome to do so via this online registry: https://www.condoleance.nl/19800

The Groningen NLP Group (GroNLP)