About me

I am an astrophysicist interested in constructing theoretical models of black hole accretion flows using plasma simulation and radiative transfer codes. I am a research fellow at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics and an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University in New York.

I obtained my bachelor’s degree at Radboud University Nijmegen, where I graduated Cum Laude. During my Bachelor thesis project, I was supervised by Prof. A. Achterberg.

I also obtained my master’s degree Cum Laude at Radboud University Nijmegen. My master thesis project was done inside the BlackHoleCam collaboration and was under the supervision of dr. M. Mościbrodzka and prof. dr. H. Falcke.

During my master, I got rewarded with the Radboud University Student Award. This award is rewarded to at most two students per year for their extraordinary contribution to academia combined with excellent study results. I was aware of this award for obtaining my degree Cum Laude while participating in various levels of student politics throughout my study.

I obtained my Ph.D. at Radboud University, where I studied black hole accretion flows in the context of the upcoming observation of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. My Ph.D. supervisors are Prof. H. Falcke and Dr. M. Mościbrodzka. My thesis was awarded the outstanding thesis award by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. During my Ph.D., I was selected by the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences as one of the Faces of Science. And as a member of the EHT, I received the 2020 Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics.

From January 2019 to July 2019, I was a Research Analyst at the Simons Foundations Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA). During my time at CCA, I collaborated with Dr. A. Philippov.