Athena currently works as a Education and Research Officer on the project 'From brain to behavior: cascading effects of early brain, cognitive and motor development on language ability in children born extremely preterm' awarded to Dr. Tessel Boerma. Her particular research interests lie in exploring complex biopsychosocial and cognitive factors that mediate early development in various (clinical) populations.

Athena completed her bachelor's degree in Clinical Psychology and Counselling (cum laude) in her home country of South Africa in 2020 and subsequently her Master of Science in Neuropsychology (cum laude) at Utrecht University in 2023. 

During her Master's, she conducted her internship in the Department of Development & Education of Youth in Diverse Societies(DEEDS) under the supervision of Prof. dr. Elma Blom and dr. Merel van Witteloostuijn. The research focus was on the cognitive, linguistic and socio-emotional development of children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and resulted in the completion of a pre-registered manuscript which systematically investigated the impact of parent-child interactions on language outcomes in children with DLD from diverse backgrounds.  

Athena's Master Thesis project involved designing a digitized variation of the Trail Making Test (TMT) to be used in awake brain surgery at the UMC Utrecht, under the supervision of dr. Teuni ten Brink and Prof. dr. Martine van Zandvoort.