I am a passionate early career researcher with a background in neurobiology and psychology. My research focuses on the multitude of internal (e.g. brain functioning, cognition, mental health, gender) and external (e.g. social interactions, culture, context) factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of substance use disorders.

As a PhD candidate at the Department of Developmental Psychology of the University of Amsterdam, I contributed to multiple lines of research on alcohol and cannabis use disorders, covering a wide range of topics from unraveling the fundamental neural underpinnings of substance use disorders to the role of social interaction and cultural attitudes in substance use in daily life.

As a postdoc at the Department of Psychology, Education & Child Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, I continued this work by setting up a large-scale international experience sampling methods (ESM) study in which we focus on the interactions between (neuro)cognition, mental health, and cannabis use in both medicinal and recreational users. Furthermore, we aim to assess the perceived harms and benefits of medicinal and recreational cannabis use around the world in different population of cannabis users, researchers, and clinical professionals. We believe this type of research, using a multi-stakeholder perspective, is crucial to inform policy and health care efforts for the prevention of substance use related harms and substance use disorders.

Ultimately, I hope my research can inspire others to embrace the complexity of substance use disorders – treating individual differences and varying perspectives as crucial pieces of the puzzle rather than a nuisance to overcome – in order to improve treatment outcomes.