Career

My love for rocks and minerals and my awe for big earth science processes, like plate tectonics, made me choose to study earth sciences and geophysics. Eventually I felt the urge to share my love for earth sciences. Therefore, I graduated in Science Education and Communication. After working in education for a while - I organised activities at secondary schools to inspire girls into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) - , I started working in a geotechnical laboratory. What I liked best during this time was the hands-on work when I was an employee of the geotechnical laboratory myself. However, working with soil everyday, I started to miss geology and the atmosphere at the university. The field that interested me most in geotechnics was material behavior. This was the reason that I started looking for something similar within geology. Furthermore, I preferably wanted to contribute to the energy transition. The HPT lab turned out to be a great fit!

Function

My passion for hands-on labwork, geology and education come together in my role at the HPT lab. As an Education/Research Officer I support the HPT staff in their teaching and research tasks. This mainly concerns activities in preparation of experiments and analysis of materials, for the benefit of projects of Bachelor and Master students, PhD’s and postdocs. Additionally, I am responsible for communication and PR of the HPT lab, like keeping the website up-to-date and giving tours in the lab. 

Expertise

In order to support students, PhD's and PostDocs with their research projects I will learn to work with and gain expertise on, amongst others, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), particle size analysis using the Master sizer, infrared spectroscopy and microscopy, polarized light microscopy, permeability and conductivity measurements, and perhaps electron microscopy (SEM).