About me

I lead a research group at the intersection of bioinformatics and medical biology, where we develop and maintain software, pipelines and databases for genomic or metagenomic analyses. Our team supports the microbiology department of the UMC Utrecht, providing bioinformatic consultation, education, and analysis of high-throughput sequencing data.

Research focus

My research interest is to find patterns in DNA sequencing data and translating these insights into genomic epidemiology, especially for infectious disease pathogens. My work spans the genomics of plasmids and other mobile genetic elements, with a recent focus on fungal pathogens. My academic journey includes a PhD on whole genome sequencing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and a postdoc on viral genomics and metagenomics.

Teaching and advocacy

I am passionate about teaching and mentoring, sharing my enthusiasm for bioinformatics, open science and reproducible research as a way to do difficult tasks better, faster, stronger. As an instructor for university courses and Carpentries workshops, I also contributed to lesson development as a maintainer of the Data Carpentry Genomics and as a member of the Curriculum Advisory Committee.