I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dutch Studies, where I coordinate the MA program in Dutch as a Second Language and Multilingualism. Additionally, I hold a position at Amsterdam UMC, within Liesbeth Reneman's Lab, the Deperatment of Biomedical Engineering and Physicis, where I collaborate with Matthan Caan, and the Alzheimer Centre Amsterdam. 

My research focuses on neuroplasticity in multilingual individuals. I investigate how learning and using multiple languages changes the brain, and whether these changes may contribute to cognitive and neural resilience in healthy ageing and Alzheimer’s disease. In doing so, my work brings together linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging, and clinical applications.

I earned my PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Reading with a doctoral thesis on structural brain changes induced by bilingual experiences, funded by Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie ITN. I was a member of the Bilingualism in the Brain Lab, where I also secured my first posdoctoral position.

Subsequently, I received Fulbright Fellowship and worked as postdoc at Pennsylvania State University in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab. There, my research focused on the influence of bilingualism on the dynamics of brain networks related to creativity.

In my current work, I combine my background in linguistics and neuroscience to examine how multilingual experiences shape the brain, and how this knowledge can be applied for societal benefit. One important research line focuses on the potential role of multilingualism in brain reserve and Alzheimer’s disease, for which I received, among other funding, the Amsterdam UMC Career Bridging Grant.