About Me

I am a neuroscientist working in the lab of Alexander Thiele at Newcastle University. I was hired here as a post-doc after completion of my PhD thesis. I investigate the neural activity that gives rise to cognitive functions. More specifically, I use various experimental and computational techniques to investigate how ongoing fluctuations in brain activity (cortical state) influence and interact with cognitive functions such as attention and decision making. Additionally, I investigate the role different neuromodulators play in driving this activity.

I have a bachelors in psychobiology and a masters degree in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Amsterdam. In my master’s program I worked with Michael X. Cohen, studying the neural activity accompanying learning, and for my master’s thesis I visited the lab of Nautsugu Tsuchiya at Monash University in Melbourne. Here I studied the neural correlates of visual awareness. I used machine learning to find the neural activity that distinguishes between instances where visual stimuli were consciously observed versus when they did not reach awareness.

I love travelling and exploring outdoors, going for hikes and cycles. Although I’ve travelled to several far away countries, more recently I’ve mainly visited places nearby such as national parks in the north of England and Scotland. The nature here is absolutely stunning!