Erik Meijs
What's your name, nationality, current function, and department?
I am Erik Meijs. I was born in Tilburg, but have been living in Nijmegen now for almost 10 years. I work as a PhD student in the Predictive Brain lab (DCCN) of Floris de Lange.
What is the topic of your PhD project and what does your work look like in practice?
In my work I focus on the relationship between perceptual expectations and consciousness. In the past I have spend a lot of time collecting and analyzing data (behavioral and MEG). Nowadays I'm basically just writing all the time.
What has your career path been so far and how did you come to your current position?
So far I have pretty much been hanging around ad the Radboud University. I have done both my Bachelor (Psychology), Master (Cognitive Neuroscience) and PhD here. My PhD was funded based on an internal TopTalent grant that I applied for together with my supervisors.
Who are you working with and what do these collaborations look like?
My daily supervisor, Simon van Gaal, has a research group at the University of Amsterdam. Therefore I collaborate a lot with people from that university. I have been involved in a number of projects by other people who do a PhD at the University of Amsterdam. Here at the Donders I have mostly worked with people from my own lab.
What aspect of your job is or has been a challenge for you?
Reading. There are too many papers and it's hard to guess which ones will really be relevant for you in the end.
What are you looking forward to in life?
Finishing my PhD thesis. I am literally in the last week of my PhD and will start my new job in June.
What does your perfect weekend look like?
Don't do too much. Read a newspaper, drink a lot of coffee and eat even more cookies.
Do you have any handy PhD-project related tips and tricks to share?
Now that I'm writing my thesis I find that its good to have as much documentation of research projects as possible. You normally write a general introduction or discussion for a thesis after roughly 4 years, which means that at that time you'll have to remember what you did (and also why you did it).