I obtained my Bachelor Nanobiology and Master Nanobiology at TU Delft & Erasmus MC (joint degree). During my masters final project, I did the internship at the Department of Developmental Biology at Erasmus MC, where I looked into mouse X chromosome reactivation using reporter cell lines, and making cell lines to be able to study human X chromosome inactivation. During this period, I got fascinated by early mammalian development and realized I wanted to continue my PhD in this field. The HipGametes project thus fits my interest, even more so because it’s a project with collaborators, not only with other biomedical scientists but also with researchers involved in ethics, legislation and societal studies. Besides Nanobiology, I’m interested in education and really like teaching. I followed the Master Science Education and Communication at TU Delft, and obtained first-degree qualifications for teaching mathematics to high school students. During my PhD so far, I’ve been involved in various bachelor courses, both as teaching assistant in class as well as optimizing the course content.
In HipGametes, I am involved in work package 3, female in vitro gametogenesis. The goal is to in vitro differentiate human induced pluripotent stem cells into mature oocytes. This would enable us to study meiosis, (epi)genome regulations and cell-cell signaling. A special interest lies in the dynamics of the X chromosomes during this process.