Short bio 

I obtained my master's degree in theoretical and experimental psychology at Ghent University in 2007. After my studies, I completed my PhD (10/2007 - 09/2011) as a member of the LipLab, under supervision of Geert Crombez and in close collaboration with Jan De Houwer and Bruno Verschuere (now at the University of Amsterdam). Between 10/2011 and 04/2013, I worked as an honorary post-doctoral fellow associated with Ghent University while living in South Africa. Upon my return to Belgium, I had a few brief post-doctoral appointments at Ghent University, followed by a four-year appointment at the University of Amsterdam as a post-doctoral researcher of the research priority area Yield, where I worked at the departments of developmental psychology (with Reinout Wiers and Elske Salemink) and pedagogical and educational sciences (with Susan Bögels). After another 6 months at the UvA at the department of developmental psychology, working with Elske Salemink, I moved to Perth for a 16-month postdoctoral contract at the University of Western Australia, working at Colin MacLeod´s Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion. In January 2021, I returned to the UvA, to work on a longitudinal project on the social and emotional development of children at the programme group of Developmental Psychopathology, with Bram Orobio de Castro. 

Research interest 

Most of my past research focused on the relation between attentional bias for threat and fear and anxiety, including the use of attentional bias modification (ABM) training. Over the past few years, I have become more and more interested in cognition-emotion interactions and emotion regulation, both in adolescents and young adults.