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My interest and expertise lie in the field of behavioral genetics, psychology and musical engagement. My work addresses factors that influence mental health, with a focus on gene-environment interplay. By using genetically informative designs, I am able to strenghten causal inferences and adjust for familial confounding when studying risk and protective factors for psychiatric problems. 

     I obtained my PhD in 2018 at the Biological Psychology Department of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. I studied genetic and familial factors that influence the development and persistence of childhood psychopathology. During my final PhD year I spend 6 months at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. After obtaining my PhD, I continued research in the field of behavioral genetics as a post-doc at the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Instititute in Stockholm. Instead of studying risk factors, I turned to investigating potentially beneficial influences on mental health, namely musical engagement.

     I am located at Amsterdam UMC, location AMC at the department of Psychiatry where I am able to work closely together with the psychiatric genetics lab lead by Prof. Karin Verweij. Additionally, one day per week, as a a post-doc I conduct genetic analyses for a variety of other research projects at the Social Psychology Department of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. From March 2022 onwards, I will work as an Assistant Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Emperical Aesthetics in Frankfurt at the Behavioral Genetics unit in collaboration with Amsterdam UMC Department of Psychiatry.