Empowering Through Science
My Purpose: Creating Impactful Change
Passionate about science, communicating research and a heart for nature. My name is Michelle and I like to think that I can make the world a better place.
My mission is to share my journey, insights, and discoveries with the world, inspiring others to pursue knowledge and make a positive impact on society. Join me as I delve into the fascinating realm of biomedical science and uncover the secrets of the natural world.
Pippi Longstocking
“I have never tried that before, so I should be able to do that”
01
Passion
02
Communication
03
Innovation
04
Impact
Determined to Make a Change
Already from a young age I have felt responsible to apply my knowledge and skills to do something good. My positivity, enthusiasm and ‘just-do-it’ mentality have enabled me to push anything forward, from science to societal impact to sports. As scientist and as sailing athlete and coach I have worked in different countries and (research) environments. Through these paths I have acquired a unique set of widely applicable skills, my favourites include research, communication, and presentation.
Connecting research to society has always been a red line for me. I participated in the Avicenna Excellence Programme, an extracurricular- and interdisciplinary program focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship in the healthcare system. During my PhD I worked in a multidisciplinary group of six PhD researchers to optimise the collaboration between social entrepreneurs and the municipality Rotterdam to enable them to better direct young people to jobs at social enterprises. When my PhD trajectory came to the final stage, I took it as an opportunity to make my research accessible for all by turning my PhD thesis into the Placenta magazine
Michelle
“Science was never meant to be a competition, apart from a challenge of the truth”
My journey
Igniting Scientific Curiosity
Currently I work at the Placenta Lab, a novel multidisciplinary research line which I started up at the Erasmus MC over the last years. Here, I study how the function of the placenta changes in pregnancy disorders, with the aim to improve placental function during pregnancy and improve the health of children and their mothers. In summer 2024, I will start a new reserach project in Milwaukee, USA, aiming to uncover the role of the factor IDO1 in the abberant regulation of blood vessels in heart disease.
It was my curiosity for ‘figuring out how things work’ that made me obtain my bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences, and my master’s degree in Cardiovascular Research, but I acquired a real passion for research during my scientific internships at VU University, Erasmus MC and Cambridge University. In my PhD project I have applied unique techniques to study the function of human blood vessels of the placenta after its birth. Through this approach I have taken the first steps to uncover changes in the function of placental blood vessels and the effects of potential therapeutic drugs during pregnancy diseases including preeclampsia and congenital diaphragmatic hernia. These findings are described in my PhD thesis Placental Origins of Health & Disease: Therapeutic opportunities. What I love most about research are the collaborations with like-minded people to explore and discover unknown paths.