Today marks a new step in my career: joining Prof. Sandra Van Puyvelde’s group at the University of Antwerp (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences - VAXINFECTIO)!
After my PhD at the Institute of Tropical Medicine and UAntwerp, I spent two years working on the LeapSeq and SquiDBase projects at the Adrem Data Lab, in the Department of Computer Science. During that time, I set up a small nanopore sequencing laboratory, led the SquiDBase project and enjoyed plenty of interesting and fun interactions with my computationally talented colleagues at Adrem.
I wanted to return to more applied microbiology research, so I obtained a personal VLAIO fellowship to work on wastewater metagenomics with Adrem and the Laboratory of Microbiology, Parasitology and Hygiene (LMPH). This brought an interesting return to wet lab work. I continued doing my own sequencing and bioinformatics, while adding wastewater sample processing to the mix.
This year (2026) alone, I trained two lab technicians, a bioinformatics postdoc, two PhD students and a master’s student. Between preparing sequencing libraries, running experiments and helping others with their analyses, I began to realise that I might have found my niche: supporting colleagues in both the wet lab and the dry lab, and especially helping connect the two. I enjoy following projects from the samples through to the data, and helping students and colleagues along the way.
About a year ago, I started talking to Sandra, my former PhD co-supervisor, about joining her team. I was looking for a new way to make a difference, building on what I had learned and applying it to questions close to my scientific interests. Supporting her group, returning to Salmonella and combining my bioinformatics and sequencing experience with a closer connection to the lab felt like a good fit. So I made the switch, and I’m happy I did!
I’m grateful to the colleagues and supervisors who have supported me throughout my PhD and postdoctoral work. Those collaborations will continue: I’m still co-supervising two talented PhD candidates, Laura Raes at Adrem and Marie De Smedt at LMPH. There will be plenty of opportunities to keep working with people I have really enjoyed working with over the years.
For now, I’m looking forward to getting to know the team better and supporting lots of interesting projects. I’ll certainly share an update along the way!