About
Introduction
Current Research
I am the principal investigator for psychiatric epidemiology and my research focusses on common psychiatric diseases such as insomnia, depression, anxiety and stress, assessing etiology, course and effect. I have a particular interest in the role of sleep in mental and physical health. To explore these, and other associations, I work with data from two population-based cohorts, the Rotterdam Study, which assesses age-related disease in persons of 40 years and older, and Generation-R, a birth cohort.
Previous work
An additional interest is the use of digital treatment of psychological disorders, which I studied in my previous position at the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi) at the University of Oxford. My work focussed specifically on the effectiveness and use of digital treatment for insomnia, such as digital cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and the effects beyond sleep, such as quality of life, mental health and cognition
Field(s) of expertise
- Psychiatric Epidemiology
- Sleep Medicine
Education and career
EDUCATION/TRAINING
- PhD Epidemiology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam
- MSc Health Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam
- BSc/MSc Psychology, Radboud University Nijmegen
PREVIOUS POSITIONS
- 2017-2018: Senior Research Associate, Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi), Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- 2015-2018: Research lead, Big Health Inc, London & San Francisco, UK & USA
- 2015-2017: Post-doctoral Research Assistant, Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi), Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- 2014-2015: Post-doctoral Research Associate, Institute of Inflammation and Repair, ARUK Centre of Epidemiology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
- 2010-2014: PhD student, Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Publications
Other positions
2022-present:
Chair Department of Epidemiology, Data, Evaluation and Monitoring,
Trimbos Institute - The Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Utrecht, The Netherlands
2023-present:
President of the Dutch Society for Sleep-Wake Research (NSWO)
Scholarships, grants, and awards
- 2019-2020: Sleep Research Society Foundation Career Development Award ‘Disentangling the association between the HPA-axis and poor sleep: A longitudinal population-based approach’
- 2020-2022: NWO ZonMW ‘Sex & gender specific determinants for Health and the Impact on the transition From disease To multimorbidity (SHIFT)’
- 2021-2022: BIAL Foundation ‘Pathways from prenatal and postnatal stress to sleep quality across childhood: the role of the amygdala and cortisol’
- 2021-2025: NIH ‘Sleep Health Profiles Predicting Impaired Cognition and Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults: Extending Novel Statistical Methods in Multi-Cohort Applications’
- 2022-2027: Convergence Health & Technology ‘A Lifecourse and Individual-based View on Lifestyle to Enhance Health (ALIVE)’
