Team

Francesca Abela

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Francesca is a PhD candidate at the Donders Center for Neuroscience, and she moved to Nijmegen in spring 2021. She wants to understand how our brains make sense of the world while we learn in a flexible manner. In particular, she is keen to unravel the circuits in the brain that allow us to make decisions and change strategies when the outcome of our actions is no longer assured.

Previously, Francesca studied biology and neuroscience at the University of Pisa. During her final year of master’s studies, she moved to Germany. There, she studied how animals learn sounds, and how this was related tone representation in the auditory cortex, the part of the brain that is responsive to sound.

Besides neuroscience, she enjoys improvisation theater and horseback riding.

See all of Francesca’s blogs

Martina Arenella

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Martina is a PhD student, in between the Donders Institute and the King’s College in London. Nevertheless, she keeps strong her Italian roots. 

She has been always fascinated in people: what do people think? Why do they behave so? This motivated her through her studies in clinical psychology. Yet, she realised she wanted to know more about the neurobiology behind people’s behaviour. That is why she studied Cognitive Neuroscience at the Radboud University. 

In particular, she is interested in the genetics of brain development: a way to understand the different contributions of biology and environment to mental health from early life. In her PhD, she investigates the role of immune-related genetics in symptoms and brain variability in autism spectrum disorders. 

Her free-time is filled with long yoga sessions, walks in the nature and stack of books. She enjoys people’s company and engage in endless conversations.  

Read all blogs of Martina

Brittany van Beek

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Brittany is a research coordinator and lab manager for the Cognitive Neuromodulation lab at the Donders Institute. She mainly focuses on keeping the lab’s research related to transcranial ultrasound stimulation on track. She is not only coordinating from a distance, but is also actively involved in data acquisition. Soon, she would like to pursue a career in science communication.

In her spare time, Brittany can often be found at the gym or in books.

Check out all of Brittany’s blogs

Marlijn ter Bekke

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During her bachelor’s at University College Utrecht, Marlijn discovered that next to mathematics, she is also very interested in cognitive neuroscience, psychology and linguistics. That’s why she decided to pursue the Cognitive Neuroscience master’s at the Donders Institute (Radboud University), where she learned more about the neuroscience of language. In September 2019 she started her PhD in the Communication in Social Interaction research group.

Marlijn is passionate about studying how people use language in their daily lives to communicate with others. This mostly happens in face-to-face conversations, in which people communicate with words, but also with bodily signals such as hand gestures, head gestures and facial expressions. How do these visual signals help us to understand each other better during conversation? In her PhD, Marlijn aims to learn more about this.

In her free time, Marlijn enjoys gardening, reading books, and wandering around thrift stores, searching for CO2-neutral treasures. 

Check out all of Marlijn’s blogs

Kim Beneyton

This post is also available in Dutch.

Kim is a French thesis student working in the field of cortical architecture, coding and perception in the Stem-cell and Brain Research Institute (Inserm, Lyon, France).

She joined the Predictive Brain Lab (Donders Center for Cognition and Neuroimaging, Nijmegen, Netherlands) in 2020. This collaboration aims to study the function and architecture of feedback connectivity with 3T and 7T laminar resolution fMRI.

According to the Predictive Coding Theory, feedback function has been underestimated and is crucial in how we perceive, learn and memorise our environment. Based on previous experiences, our brain is constantly predicting what is likely to happen. These predictions can be more or less accurate and feedback connections help us to adjust them.

In parallel to her studies, Kim also has a passion for dance, music and writing.

Check out all of Kim’s blogs

Floortje Bouwkamp

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Floortje is a neurocognitive scientist with a background in visual communication. She investigates how expectations can guide selective attention.

During her time as a professional graphic designer she developed a profound interest in the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception and decided to pursue a career in science. She got her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Amsterdam and her research master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Institute (Radboud University).

She is currently doing her PhD funded by a research talent grant in the Predicitive Brain Lab. Here, she investigates how we automatically and implicitly learn the predictable structure in our environment and how this predictability is used by our brains to facilitate subsequent perceptual processing, completely outside of our awareness. Fascinated by the brain, she hopes to share its many wonders on this blog.

She lives together with her husband and son in Nijmegen with son #2 on the way.

Check out all of Floortje’s blogs

Rebecca Calcott

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Rebecca studies cognitive control, the ability to direct our thoughts and actions towards our goals and avoid distractions. She is particularly interested in how and why our cognitive control varies across different people and situations: Why can we easily stay focused on a task at some times, whereas at other times we are easily distracted?

She is currently researching this question as a postdoc in the Motivational and Cognitive Control Lab at the Donders Institute. Previously, Rebecca studied Psychology at the University of Toronto and the University of Oregon and worked at the University of Regensburg.

Outside of science, Rebecca enjoys traveling whenever possible, cooking (and eating!), and knitting all the things.

Check out all of Rebecca’s blogs

Ping Chen

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Ping is currently a PhD student working in the motivational and cognitive control lab of Roshan Cools, co-supervised by Hanneke den Ouden. For her research, Ping is interested in the role of dopamine and motivation in action and planning: how motivation and dopamine affect our daily decisions, such as choosing to drink a cola or water after sports.

Prior to her journey to the Netherlands, Ping was an enthusiastic psychology student, fascinated by many fun topics such as consciousness and social interaction. In her free time, Ping enjoys keeping track of the little things (by diary or picture), going on adventurous journeys (“okay, just traveling, I admit”) and eating (“I am also an excellent cook”).

Check out all of Ping’s blogs

Christienne Damatac

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Christienne is a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Institute. Her work focuses on how brain structure and function relate to cognitive differences between people. She is currently studying brain function in people who are highly sensitive to external stimuli, and how that relates to their physical and mental health outcomes in different environments. 

In her spare time, she loves to get lost in her sketch book, a museum, or her thoughts. 

Check out all of Christienne’s blogs

Wessel Hieselaar

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Wessel decided to go in a different direction after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in Artificial Intelligence. He is now enrolled in the Master’s programme for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Radboud University, focussing on language and communication. At the moment he is an intern at the Donders Centre for Cognition, where he’s researching word recognition and translation, using a computational model. His research interests are in the field of semantics: how people give meaning to the words they encounter.

In his spare time, Wessel likes to play board games and bossaball, and he likes to write from time to time.

Viola Hollestein

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Viola is a PhD candidate studying how chemical imbalance in the brain could be what cause differences in both the brain and in behaviors in autistic individuals. She got her Bachelors degree in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy at the University of Skövde in Sweden, being determined to figure out where consciousness happens in the brain. She then got her Masters degree in cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Institute, where she discovered her fascination with people who experience the world differently than most of us do, and what is happening in the brain that makes this happen. That is what led her to her research in neurodevelopmental disorders and especially autism, where she hopes a better understanding of those differences could help in giving better support for those who might need it.

In her free time she loves spending time with her two dogs, redecorating her home, and reading.

Check out all of Viola’s blogs

Christina Isakoglou

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Christina is a PhD student at the Donders Institute. Her research focuses on creating methodologies that can help us understand developmental changes of the brain at the individual level.

She finished her Master’s thesis working with the Statistical Imaging and Predictive Clinical Neuroscience groups, after which her fascination for developmental disorders, such as autism, grew stronger. The notion in psychiatry that there is no average patient, biologically speaking, is what intrigues and motivates her research. Outside of science, she spends most of her time devouring fiction books and exercising.

Check out all of Christina’s blogs

Felix Klaassen

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Felix has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience, both acquired at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. After completing his Master’s, he joined the Decision Neuroscience lab as a research assistant where he developed an interest into how people make decisions. Specifically, Felix wanted to know more about what people do in situations of possible reward and/or threat. Recently, he joined the Affective Neuroscience lab to investigate this by looking at how the bodily response of freezing affects approach and avoid decisions under threat.

In his free time Felix enjoys playing the guitar, going to the gym, playing videogames, and drinking special beers and whisky.

Check out all of Felix’s blogs

Ellen Lommerse

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One of Ellen Lommerse’s not-so-guilty pleasures in life, both professionally and as a hobby, is the English language and culture. Even though she finished her studies of English at Utrecht University in 1995, English has always remained a firm favorite, and so much so that she has recently decided to return to studying part-time (English Teacher Training at the HAN).

Ellen lived in London for about 12 years where she worked a.o. as a Blue Badge Guide and a translator. After settling down in the Netherlands, she has been teaching English since 2005 and she has worked at the Donders Institute in a supporting role since 2013.

Besides editing and translating Donders Wonders blogs, she loves travelling and is looking forward to doing a second trip around the world (this time by bike).

Marisha Manahova

This post is also available in Dutch.

Mariya Manahova has a Bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Psychology from Bates College in the USA and a Master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. For her current PhD work, she researches how we perceive the world visually and how our brains predict what we are going to see around us. For instance, how does brain activity differ when we see an image we expect compared to an image we don’t expect? Mariya also studies how different objects appear to us: how bright they seem to be or how long they seem to last for. For example, do we perceive expected or unexpected images as brighter? Do expected or unexpected images appear to last longer? Mariya tries to answer these questions in her work here at the Donders Centre.

Check out all of Marisha’s blogs 

Jill Naaijen

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Jill studies cognitive and biological psychology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, after which she moved to Nijmegen for a PhD project in cognitive neuroscience. Her research focused on compulsive and impulsive behavior in children with neurodevelopmental disorders and how they differ and overlap with a main focus on brain and genetics. Jill currently works as a post-doctoral researcher at the Donders Institute and is involved in NeuroIMAGE, TACTICS, MATRICS and Aggressotype; all international projects with a focus on neurodevelopmental disorders.

Besides science, in her free time Jill likes to travel, learn the Italian language, pilates and writing (but also reading) fiction.

Judith Scholing

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Judith became interested in nutrition as well as neuropsychology during her bachelor program Health and Life sciences at VU University in Amsterdam. Two quite different topics, but she managed to combine the two during her master Nutrition and Health at Wageningen University: For her master thesis she investigated which brain areas are involved in hunger and satiety. 

Judith is interested in eating behavior: Why do you feel like eating chocolate at one moment but feel like eating crisps an hour later? And why do you cook a complicated recipe at one day but simply put a pizza in the oven at the other? In spring 2021, Judith started her PhD at the Donders Institute in which she will be looking into how low-grade inflammation influences the brain and food choice behavior in people with obesity. 

In her free time, Judith likes to bake, do some (windowsill) gardening, and to go to the cinema and theatre. 

See all of Judith’s blogs

Julija Vaitonyte

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Julija is currently doing her PhD at Tilburg University on a project that seeks to build virtual humans that are life-like. She has a background in psycholinguistics and a great interest in a variety of aspects of non-verbal communication. Originally from Lithuania, Julija came to the Netherlands in 2016 to follow a research master’s in Language and Communication at Radboud University. During her studies, she completed internships at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen and the University of Cambridge.

Julija could never survive without… of course oxygen but as much as oxygen is essential so are travelling, theatre, baking and chocolate.

Check out all of Julija’s blogs