I grew up in the little town of Andijk, in the province North-Holland in the Netherlands, where I attended primary school and highschool. My mum and dad are still living and working there; my mum as a bookkeeper, my dad as a broker.

My sister Fleur is a medical doctor living in the historical town of Leiden, The Netherlands. She is currently studying to become a General Practitioner (GP) in the Netherlands.

When I moved to Enschede for my undergraduate studies, I met my wonderful husband Mark. We got married in May 2006.

At the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands, I successfully obtained my "ingenieursdiploma" in Mechanical Engineering in 2004. Our academic interests took us away from the Netherlands, to the "Golden state" of California, USA. Mark and I lived in Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles, from September 2004 until December 2009.

Mark and I obtained our master's degree in Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in June 2005. I continued for my PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics at the same institution, which I obtained in June 2010.

In October 2010, our wonderful son Tim was born. He is a delightful and happy baby and brightens our days!

Currently, we live in Cambridge, UK where I am a NERC postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge. My field research has taken me from the sand dunes in the boiling hot deserts in California to the sub-zero temperatures in the snowy Alps where I investigate snow avalanches.