About me
I graduated as a psychologist (1989) with a focus on Health Psychology and Psychogerontology. In 1998, I completed a Master's degree in Health Services Research and in 2002 I obtained my PhD on research on Waiting lists for nursing homes admission. From 1989 on I started working as a researcher in Amsterdam (VU hospital, the AMC and then VUmc).
At the moment, I work at Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc as coordinator and lecturer at several trainings at Gerion and as senior researcher at the department of Medicine for older people. In addition, from June 2020, I work at the Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen (DZNE - Witten, Germany), where I advise on projects with assistive technology, in particular social robots in healthcare. As of January 2020, I started my own company with the goal to fulfil a bridging function between science and practice in the field of effective (eHealth) support in dementia.
Verder ben ik vanaf 2015 bestuurslid van het Europese netwerk INTERDEM, dat bestaat uit onderzoekers op het gebied van psychosociale interventies voor mensen met dementie. Tevens ben ik daarbij voorzitter van de website commissie INTERDEM en van de Taskforce Ondersteunende Technologie.
Daarnaast probeer ik in mijn vrije tijd te genieten van een sociaal (familie, vrienden) en sportief (tennis, fietsen, Zumba) leven. En dan hou ik ook nog van bakken 