Short biography 

I obtained my Ph.D. in 2017 under the supervision of Professor Susan Bögels at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education at the University of Amsterdam. My Ph.D. thesis investigated whether heightened self-conscious emotions and disturbances in social cognition contribute to the development of children's social anxiety disorder symptoms. As a post-doc, I worked with Dr. Disa Sauter, Dr. Christian Keysers, and Dr. Valeria Gazzola at Amsterdam Brain and Cognition as well as with Dr. Mariska Kret at the Comparative Psychology and Affective Neuroscience Lab at Leiden University. Since then, I have supervised PhD candidates Julia Folz, Iliana Samara, Chris Riddell, and Ruya Akdag, whose research focuses on emotional synchrony, emotion perception and expression, and cooperation. Since 2021, I have been appointed as an assistant professor in the developmental psychopathology group at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam where I continue to examine emotion and cognition in the social contexts throughout human development, with my current work supported by a Dutch Research Council Veni grant.

Research interests

I am interested in understanding how young children develop the capacities to navigate the social world successfully. My research examines how and when children develop social emotions, how these emotions are intertwined with socio-cognitive skills, and how they influence children's social behaviours, such as cooperation and avoidance of social situations. I study emotions and social cognition using naturalistic tasks that reflect everyday life. My research employs a multi-method approach, including precise micro-coding of behaviours and neuro-physiological measures, to capture children's emotions and social understanding.  

Academic service

I am a PhD Development and Education coordinator at the Research Institute of Child Development and Education. I also serve on the board of the International Society for Research on Emotion.