Associate professor and head of the laboratory of vascular medicine, at the department of internal medicine at the Erasmus MC University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on mechanisms in lipid metabolism that contribute to cardiometabolic and related diseases as well as Alzheimer’s disease, by performing basic and translational research, focussing on the potential of seaweed. This includes developing novel diagnostic tools, such as sphingolipid analyses, and identifying novel targets for better personalized therapeutic approaches for patients with such diseases. She has successfully supervised 10 and presently (co-)supervises 7 Ph.D. students. She has been a member of the boards of scientific societies, such as the Dutch and European Lipoprotein Societies. She is currently involved in the Scandinavian Society of Atherosclerosis Research, an official EAS National Society, and holds the position of financial auditor. Besides she is an associate editor of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.