Team members
Sibel Altikulaç
PhD student Sibel graduated from Leiden University in 2015 with a Master in Applied Neuroscience in Education and Child Studies. She then worked as a Research Assistant in the Brain & Development Lab (Leiden). In 2017 she started as a PhD student at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, supervised by Prof. Dr. Nienke van Atteveldt, Prof. Dr. Lydia Krabbendam and Dr. Barbara Braams. As part of the Lab of Learning, her research focuses on the development of secondary school students’ mindset, their academic achievement, and academic well-being. She is also using neuroimaging techniques to investigate the neural development. Outside of the lab, Sibel loves yoga, reading, and nature walks with friends and family. |
Rebecca van Rijn
PhD student Rebecca graduated from both the Medical Biology Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience research master at Radboud University Nijmegen in 2019. She first started working at the Vrije Universiteit as a research assistant for the ERC project SoConnect of Prof. Dr. Lydia Krabbendam. In 2021 Rebecca started her PhD focusing on prosocial (risk-taking) behaviour in adolescents, using fMRI, behavioural and EMA data collection. Her project is jointly supervised by Dr. Barbara Braams, Prof. Dr. Lydia Krabbendam and Prof. Dr. Paul van Lange. Rebecca is especially interested in adolescent development, (social) peer influences and practicing interdisciplinary research. When not at work, Rebecca enjoys running, going to music festivals and crafts. |
Hester Sijtsma
Postdoctoral researcher Hester completed the bachelor’s program clinical neuropsychology (2014) and the research master program clinical neuropsychology (2016) at the University of Amsterdam. She then started her PhD research at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam under supervision of Prof. Dr. Lydia Krabbendam, Dr. Barbara Braams and Dr. Nikki Lee. Her research focuses on the development of trust, the neural mechanisms of trust and how friendship influences this behavior and these processes. Furthermore, she is interested in how social cognition and friendships relate to subclinical symptoms of depression, autism and psychosis. |
Ana da Silva Pinho
PhD student - University of Amsterdam Ana’s background is in education, human development and psychopathology (University of Porto and Amsterdam). She worked on different developmental projects, such as emotion processing in infancy and intergenerational transmission of antisocial and criminal behaviour. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in the Connected Minds Lab and University of Amsterdam. Her project is jointly supervised by Dr. Wouter van den Bos, Dr. Lucas Molleman and Dr. Barbara Braams. Her PhD research broadly focusses on social learning and decision-making in adolescence. She will investigate how adolescents learn from each other, how this is shaped by social norms and how this affects their risk-taking and prosocial behaviour. To address these questions, she will use a wide range of methods: surveys, experimental tasks, computational modeling and neural measures. |
Alumni
Jill Blok
Research assistant (2019)
Research Master student - Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Amsterdam (2019)
Evelien van Beugen
Research Master student - Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Amsterdam (2019)
Anass Ben Mohammed
Master student - Clinical Neuropsychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2019-2020)
Kristie van Bergen
Master student - Clinical Neuropsychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2019-2020)
Alida Graat
Research Master student - Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Amsterdam (2019)
Esmee Haverkort
Master student - Neurosciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2020)
Desiree Hoogenboom
Master student - Clinical Neuropsychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2019-2020)
Sara Kapika
Research assistant (2019)
Nicky Lute
Research assistant (2019-2020)
Simon Poortman
Research assistant (2020)
Maaike van der Rhee
Research Master student - Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Amsterdam (2019-2020)
Luna Wattel
Research Master student - Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Amsterdam (2019-2020)