Background
I have both my BSc (2014), MSc (2017) and PhD (2022) in Biology from Wageningen University. My biological interests primarily lie with plants and fundamentally understanding their interactions with other organisms, such as those inducing diseases. In my bachelor I specialised in ecology and biodiversity, as well as plant physiology, biological control of insects, and plant-insect interactions. During my master I followed the bio-interactions track and broadened my view to include microbes: I studied interactions between insects and fungi (exchange semester in the USA, University of Illinois), plants, insect pests, and bacteria (thesis), and also plants and foliar fungal diseases (internship).
In my PhD thesis research I focussed on the effects of biodiversity on belowground disease risk in plants. This was an interdisciplinary project where I bridged the fields of plant ecology, plant pathology and disease ecology.
I am currently continuing my research as a post-doctoral researcher at the Plant Ecology & Nature Conservation chairgroup of Wageningen University and as guest researcher at department of Microbial Ecology of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.