Post docs

After my technical engineering (B.Sc.) and artificial intelligence studies (B.Sc. & M.Sc.), I finished my PhD (Summa Cum Laude) in November 2009 at the department of Cognitive Psycholgy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). During my Ph.D. I investigated how the brain processes information via different sensory modalities (like audition, touch and vision) and how this information interacts with each other. After my PhD, I was a postdoc for two more years at the VU, and in April 2012 I moved with my wife and two boys to Sydney, Australia. At the University of Sydney, I worked as a postdoc with Prof. David Alais. Together with David and my other collaborator dr. John Cass (Western Sydney University), I published papers in the field of motion perception, multisensory perception, visual search, and object identification. I also applied AI techniques (such as genetic algorithms) to study human behaviour in complex scenes. Besides fundamental research, I also conducted a couple of more applied studies regarding wine tasting, and online dating. At the Sydney Uni, I successfully supervised a couple of Ph.D. students, and I received a prestigious DECRA grant from the Australian Research Council. When I was a senior Lecturer, I moved back to the Netherlands in January 2016 to become an Assistant Professor at the department of Cognitive Psychology (VU). Together with dr. Sander Begeer (VU), Prof. Hilde Geurts and others we received a prestigious grant from ZonMW to study autism. Since, 2020 I work one day a week at the d’Arc research group at the Brain and Cognition section at the University of Amsterdam. Here, we aim to develop an objective tool for diagnosing autism using machine learning techniques (AI). The remaining four days in the week, I work as a researcher at TNO (Netherlands organization of applied scientific research) at the Perceptual and Cognitive Systems research group to conduct applied research.   

I joined UvA/D’Arc in September 2018 as a postdoctoral researcher. My research interest has centered around long term development. In 2010 I started as a PhD student at the Radboud University Medical Center, looking at the long term development of substance use disorders in ADHD. This led to my exploration of risk factors for substance use disorders, and eventually my disseration in 2015.

After finishing my PhD thesis, I started a postdoc position at the VU university in Amsterdam, where I had the opportunity to further explore one of the most striking results from my PhD; the protective effect of stimulant medication on SUDs. In 2016, I continued with a second postdoc in Groningen at the University Medical Center Groningen, departement of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Groningen. Here I focused on treatment of ADHD, and factors associated with successful treatment.