Manuel Haqiqatkhah started his PhD project in September 2020 as part of the ERC project OPTIMAL. He obtained a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran, an advanced Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence, and a Research Master’s degree in Psychology (Magna Cum Laude) from the Catholic University of Leuven. Currently, Manuel focuses on the use of discrete valued time series models to analyze time series data based on a likert scale measurements, as is typical and self-reports.