What has your career path been so far and how did you come to your current position?
During my Bachelor’s in Life Sciences, I took a Neuroscience unit that covered topics from cellular to cognitive and consumer neuroscience, which I found very interesting and I decided that I wanted to explore this field further. I went on to pursue the Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience Master’s in Groningen, after which I was still uncertain about a career in academia. For my second Master’s internship, I came to the Donders in Nijmegen and later continued working here as a Research Assistant in the MCC lab for a year to help me decide if I liked the work or not. I really enjoyed being part of the lab and the project team, working on both data collection and analysis, and I realised I wanted to continue doing this long-term on a topic of my interest, so I started applying for PhD positions, and here I am now!
What is the topic of your PhD project and how does your work look like in practice?
For my PhD project, we are investigating how the degree of control one has over a stressful situation influences behavioural, neural, and neurochemical responses. When you have control, your actions matter and can affect the outcome of the stress. When you don’t have control, the adaptive response is to conserve cognitive resources and rely on reflexive behaviours, since your actions can’t change the outcome of the stressful situation. Stress underlies many mental health disorders, and regulating your response based on how much control you have over a stressful situation may be key in reducing its impact. We will use behavioural and neuroimaging measures, including fMRI and PET imaging, to examine changes in brain networks and dopamine and serotonin levels in response to controllable and uncontrollable stressors. Currently, I am developing a stress task that manipulates participants’ control over the stressor and preparing the ethics application for the PET project.
What aspect of your job is or has been a challenge for you?
I still consider myself a “baby” PhD student, barely a year into my program, so I may not have encountered many challenges yet. I’m currently working on a few projects that are at different stages, which can be nice because it gives me the flexibility to choose what to focus on each day. However, it can also be challenging to manage the logistics of multiple projects at once. Sometimes, there are delays because you’re dependent on external teams you collaborate with, and there’s nothing you can do but wait. No amount of stress will make the project move faster (an uncontrollable stressor ;-)), though that’s often easier said than done!
When it is time to relax, what does your perfect weekend look like?
On a sunny day, I love going out for a long walk, chilling in the park, discovering new cafes in the city, and spending more time on my hobbies, like photography. When the weather is bad, I enjoy staying in, binge-watching Netflix, and crocheting (my new favourite hobby; we also formed a small club with a few of us at the Donders, called the Needle Networks ;-P, feel free to join us!!)