As a psychiatrist and stress researcher, I am committed to bridging fundamental research and clinical practice to advance our understanding of stress resilience and mental health. My work is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating insights from psychology, neuroscience, biology, and lived experiences with cutting-edge approaches such as big data analytics. My career began with degrees in Pharmacy, Medicine, and Law, culminating in a PhD (cum laude) focused on stress and behavior in rodents. Driven by an interdisciplinary spirit, I am now specialized as a clinical psychiatrist with a research group at AmsterdamUMC where I am Full Professor of Stress and Resilience.
My research focuses on understanding stress and resilience in real-world and controlled settings, using daily life stress measurements and linking them to laboratory findings through collaborations like DESTRESS (Consortium Leader, NWA, National Science Agenda) and Stress-in-Action (co-applicant, Dutch Research Council Gravitation). I investigate the psychological, biological, and mental health impacts of (childhood) trauma, to understand depression and anxiety but also to develop targeted interventions. Additionally, I explore individual differences in stress reactivity, integrating (epi)genetic, psychological, and environmental factors. My overall goal is to understand how stress impacts individuals through these multiple lenses and to unravel the complex and dynamic interplay between an individual and his/her environment. To this end, I am active at the national (Founder of STRESS-NL foundation) and international level (Chair ECNP Resilience Network, Steering Committee Global Stress and Resilience Network). Ultimately, as a clinical psychiatrist and researcher, I want to improve mental health outcomes for patients suffering from stress-related disorders.
My work not only drives scientific innovation but also influences public discourse, as seen in my books on burnout (‘Spellbound by burn-out’) and antidepressants (‘Do antidepressants work?’), which demystify complex issues and engage diverse audiences