I am an Fellow Infectious Diseases and Postdoctoral Researcher in melioidosis, immunology, global health and infectious diseases at the Department of Medicine, Center of Infection & Molecular Medicine (CIMM), all at the Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam. The core of my research and clinical work has always centered around infectious diseases and global health, most notably melioidosis and COVID-19. I have worked in hospitals and research labs in The Netherlands, UK, South Africa, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Suriname, fueling my commitment to health equity. For my PhD, I wrote my own research-proposal about melioidosis, a tropical infectious disease with a significant global burden with 165,000 estimated cases, of whom 54% die annually worldwide, awarded with a personal AMC-PhD Scholarship. Despite being an earlier career researcher, I already secured multiple prestigious grants and awards including the prestigious NWO-VENI grant and ECCMID Global Young Research Grant. I have extensive experience in coordinating (inter)national studies, with a prime focus on sub-Saharan Africa. My aim is to decrease the global melioidosis burden by raising awareness, improving diagnostic facilities, and paving the way for novel treatment and prevention strategies using a translational approach. In 2020, I started my internal medicine residency combining patientcare and science. Presently, I am the national lead of the TURN-COVID study evaluating the use of new therapies against SARS-CoV-2 in high-risk patients. Over the years, I have established my own line of research integrating immunology, infectious diseases and global health.

Melioidosis, Sepsis, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Podoconiosis, COVID-19, viral infections in immunocompromised patients, creative methods