Meet our FPN Alumni

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Simone Büschges

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Ola Deltan

Master in Neuropsychology

Academic year 2018/2019

Job title: Neuropsychologist at NTC (Neurologisches Therapiecentrum) in Cologne Full time since July 2020

In a team of neurologists, speech therapists, physiotherapists, ergotherapists, social workers and nurses

Tasks:

1.Rehabilitation of patients with neurological conditions:

• Diagnostics:
  • neuropsychological assessements (paper and pencil and computer) 
  • testing eligibility to drive a car
• Therapy (single sessions and groups):
  • relaxation group (Progressive Muscle Relaxation sensu Jacobson and Autogenic Training sensu Schulz
  • attention group
  • memory group
  • visual dysfunction group
  • planning and logic group
  • support group to cope with changes
• Psychoeducation:
  • pain management
  • stress management
  • mindfulness
  • eligibility of driving a car of a neurologic disease
  • smoking

2.Neuropsychological assessments for geriatric patients at affiliated the hospital:

• Identification of early cognitive changes related to various types of dementia
• Conversations to cope with disease

3. Classes and courses for current employees that are in high risk for disease to prevent from occurring

• Multimodal intervention with psychoeducation and relaxation techniques)

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Miriam Heynckes

Miriam Heynckes currently explores the dynamic landscape of Technology Consulting at Deloitte. In the Technology Strategy and Transformation team, she's immersed in a range of projects, covering strategy, tech innovation, and technology transformation.

Prior to her role at Deloitte, Miriam, alongside Elia Formisano, Federico De Martino, and Peter de Weerd, secured the "Research Talent" grant from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to conduct her PhD research. Their collaborative effort explored layer-specific processing in the auditory cortex using high-field fMRI, marking a significant chapter in Miriam's academic journey. Before transitioning to the professional realm, Miriam achieved distinction in both her Bachelor in Psychology and Neuroscience, as well as her Research Master's in Cognitive Neuroscience from 2012 to 2017. Her academic path included the honors program, a semester at Stellenbosch University, and a Marble research project. Throughout her educational journey, Miriam dedicated time as a tutor in Psychology and Neuroscience.

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Cristina Hidalgo

I studied Criminology at Sevilla, I did a semester in Missouri (Social work and Legal Studies); and got my Master in Legal Psychology in Maastricht in 2018.

I describe myself as outgoing, cheerful and very active. I love travelling and all kind outdoors activities: hiking, in line skating,...

My first job was as a Fraud Analyst in Vueling Airlines; I was in charge of monitoring payments and searching for risky patterns and tendencies; make reports and create rules to automatize this fraud control.

Currently, I work as a Security Document Expert in Thales DIS, a tech company based in Madrid. I am in charge of controlling identity verifications, such as border control, police, and other identity checks such as phone companies. My job is to search for the newest security mechanisms in identity documents, and keep the database updated.

I found out that all my academic background, even though it seems not directly related to my carrer, is really useful to develop my job: multidisciplinary vision, research tools, analytical mind, statistics and analysis,…

I love my profession and I proudly say that I am a Criminologist specialized in fraud prevention.

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Job van den Hurk

Job van den Hurk is a cognitive neuroscientist. After his Bsc in psychology and Msc in cognitive neuroscience, he obtained his PhD at Maastricht University for his research on higher order visual processing. He then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, where he studied how visual brain regions of congenitally blind people are functionally organized. He mainly uses functional and structural MRI as neuroimaging methods, and unravels the data using computational modeling and machine learning techniques. At this moment, he works as scientific director at ultra-high field MRI center Scannexus in Maastricht, as well as assistant professor at Maastricht University.

Job is co-founder and editor-in-chief of award-winning scientific platform BrainMatters, which intends to make neuroscience accessible to the broader public. He also writes blogs and articles for the writer’s collective Kaf.online, and is co-host of the Dutch tv show ‘Brainstorm’.

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Ilona de Kooter

Ilona completed her bachelor degree in Liberal arts and sciences in 2014 at the University in Tilburg. In 2015 she obtained her first Master degree, Health and Social Psychology, at Maastricht University. This degree was followed up with a second master degree, Mental Health, which she obtained in 2017.  After finishing this degree she started working as a psychologist in training at HSK. HSK is a mental health organization geared towards aiding people with mental health complaints such as depression, anxiety, compulsions, and trauma. In 2021 she completed       a 2-year training to become a fully licensed CBT-therapist. Recently she started the 2-year postgraduate degree to become a GZ-psychologist. This September she will finish her first year. Since April of this year she started working at PGZ, a mental health institute specialized in autism and comorbidity, as part of her training to become a GZ-psychologist.

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Saara Martinmäki 

Saara Martinmäki completed her BSc in Psychology at the University of Glasgow, including a transformative year abroad at the University of California San Diego. Inspired by her experiences there, in particular working as a research assistant in various posttraumatic stress disorder projects, she discovered her passion for applied research.

Her academic pursuit led her to attend the Research Master in Psychopathology in Maastricht (2015-2017). Post-graduation, she delved into the world of trauma research, starting as a junior researcher and policy adviser at ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre in the Netherlands. There, her work took a strong focus on the mental health and wellbeing of individuals in high-risk occupational groups. Her PhD project focused on the mental health of humanitarian aid workers, and she also worked on creating guidelines for supporting first responders in the aftermath of a terrorist attack or other violent incidents. She currently still works at ARQ, now as a researcher and policy adviser focusing on mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of people affected by war, disasters, and the aftermath of traumatic events in low- and middle-income countries.

Whilst seemingly straight-forward on paper, her career journey has taken some unexpected turns. In her presentation, Saara will share her journey, the (many) challenges she encountered, and the fulfilling work that she gets to do today.

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Sara Mazzini

Sara Mazzini was born and raised in Italy, where she obtained her Bachelor in Psychological Sciences and Techniques from the University of Bologna in 2018. She then moved to the Netherlands and obtained her Research Master in Cognitive Neuroscience from Maastricht University in 2020. She did her research internship in the Brain and Language group, part of the Maastricht Brain Imaging Center, focusing on the oscillatory correlates of syntactic encoding and how these differ between healthy controls and classic galactosemia patients. After graduating, she worked as a research assistant in the same research group.

Currently, she is a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. The institute is part of the German Max Planck Society and it is entirely devoted to the study of how language is produced and understood, and how these skills are acquired by first or second language learners. In her PhD, she investigates the relation between successful communication and neural synchrony both within and between conversational partners, using naturalistic paradigms and dual-EEG. Besides her PhD project, she engages in science communication, event organization and doctoral representation.

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Joyce Mertens 

Consulting work allows for the interaction with different companies, organisations and disciplines. Within Workforce & Organisation Joyce utilizes her expertise in human behavior, people management, resource planning & expectation management. Knowledge from psychology and organizational psychology is therefore important at Capgemini Invent.

Joyce Mertens works as a Senior Consultant at Capgemini. She applies her knowledge of the operational and project management for both her clients and her employer. These assignments can have sustainability aspects which makes the work even more attractive due to the social benefits. Examples of assignments are: reorganisations, facilitation of deployment of sustainability initiatives by educating the employees and organize an internal and external communication plan, identify BAU processes etc. Joyce Mertens followed all her education at Maastricht University – Bachelor of Psychology, Master of Neuropsychology & Human Decisions Science. Before she joined Capgemini Invent she also worked within EY for several years.

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Gosia Michalowska

PhD Candidate in Medical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden

Formerly worked at a Translational Molecular Imaging Lab at Karolinska Institute.

Gosia loves being a translational researcher, who began her journey studying psychology at Maastricht University, followed by neuropsychology, and ultimately landing her PhD position in the fundamental neuroscience field. This transition has allowed her to have the most holistic picture, neuroimaging, and laboratory skills, allowing to study diseases from preclinical animal models to clinical stages.

Her research career began in Manchester, UK, working as an intern on in vivo imaging of pathological ageing processes. Her project developed into a longer collaboration with the University of Manchester, leading to her first publication. Gosia landed her first job as a Research Assistant in Nordberg Translational Molecular Imaging Lab, at Karolinska Institute. Her focus was depiction of neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease.

Currently, Gosia is in the middle stage of her PhD, working in a neuroimmunology laboratory on animal research of neurodegeneration in ischaemic stroke as well as therapeutic opportunities for haemorrhagic stroke. Although it can be challenging at times, she tries to combine her work with hobbies such as running and learning Mandarin Chinese.

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Linda Olivers

Linda Olivers is a twenty-nine-year-old woman from Maastricht, who has studied Psychology at the University of Maastricht. After her bachelor, she decided to continue with a master ‘Psychology and Law’, because of her interests in Forensics. After a research internship at a forensic facility for youngsters, she decided to do a second master, Mental Health – Children & Youngsters - that offered her the opportunity to interact more directly with children, youngsters and their families. Experiencing the joy that working with this target group brings, she decided to commit herself to a role of psychologist/behavioral scientist. For three years she has worked now at Child Protection Services Maastricht, investigating protective and disturbing factors of influence on the development of (vulnerable) children & youngsters and advising both parents and court on which path to take in order to reach a better well-being.

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Eveline Persoon

Eveline Persoon works as a programme coordinator for professional development at EDLAB, Maastricht University’s Centre for Teaching & Learning. In this position, Eveline organises activities that help Maastricht University teachers and educators develop their professional competencies further. Next to this, Eveline teaches a university course on developmental psychology. Getting to this position did not necessarily happen through the “conventional” route. After high school, Eveline decided to become a primary school teacher. After three years of doing internships in various primary schools and learning a lot about pedagogy and didactics, Eveline felt that there was more to explore within the field of the developing mind. Studying psychology and later developmental psychology felt like a logical next step and led her to become a child and adolescent psychologist. Building further on her studies, Eveline decided to do a clinical internship, during which she realised that her heart really lied with teaching. Her desire to combine all her interests - teaching developmental psychology while helping other teachers develop themselves professionally - brought Eveline to her current position at EDLAB. In her private life, Eveline loves spending time with her partner and their newborn son, cooking, baking, taking long walks and going to the movies.

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Renzo Riemens

Renzo J.M. Riemens was born and raised in the south of Zeeland, the Netherlands. In 2014, he successfully  obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences  with a specialization in Molecular life sciences at Maastricht University, after which he entered the Research Master programme in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience with a specialization in Fundamental Neuroscience. For the compulsory 9-month internship, Renzo joined the research team of Dr. Raul Delgado-Morales and Prof. Dr. Manel Esteller at the “Institut d'Investigació Biomédica de Bellvitge” (IDIBELL), in Barcelona, Spain. During his internship, Renzo was assigned to a project aimed at characterizing and optimizing a neuronal in vitro model system derived from human neural stem cells within the context of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). After successfully completing his Research Master studies in 2016, Renzo started a joint-PhD programme focused on neuroepigenomics in AD between Maastricht University and the Julius Maximilians-University, in Wuerzburg, Germany, under the primary supervision of Dr. Daniel van den Hove and Prof. Dr Thomas Haaf, respectively. In 2020, Renzo was awarded with a Kootstra Talent Fellowship for young talented scientific researchers by the Maastricht UMC+ Research Committee (WMUMC+) to fund his ow post-doc position. Currently, Renzo is a post-doc fellow in the group of Prof. Dr. Daniel van den Hove and Dr. Gunter Kenis at the Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, Maastricht University, further expanding his research on neuroepigenomics in AD trough the implementation of both targeted and epigenome-wide (single cell) approaches, as well as induced pluripotent stem cell-based model systems.

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Marwin Snippe

He studied the bachelor of Psychology and continued his study with the master Social & Health Psychology. After his master, he ended up working at CZ – a health insurance company – doing data analysis on health fraud. Investigating health companies on possible fraud he also continued (and continues to do so) working on a PhD in Psychology. The subject of the PhD centres on self-identity in the health psychology theory: the Theory of Planned Behaviour. At this moment, he works as a data analyst at Stichting Radar in healthcare. Using regression analysis, structural equation modelling and factor analysis he tries to create new insights in health psychology. At his work, he tries to gain further insight in how to better provide insights to enrich the alumni experience using visualisation as a main tool. His hobbies are mindset, personal development and motivation.

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Jocelyn Tang

Jocelyn was born and raised in Malaysia where she also obtained her Bachelor Sc (Hons) Psychology. She then pursued her master’s education in Maastricht University under the Work and Organisational Psychology track, graduating in the class of 2016-2017. Since then, she has been no stranger in the field of Human Resources, specialising in HR Rewards and Information Systems in multinational organisations. Passionate about people analytics, she is currently the Global HR Information Systems Subject Matter Expert in Versuni, servicing 51 countries in her scope. In her current role, she provides guidance to local teams on best practices and efficient use of HR systems and people data. She is also involved in project management where she drives delivery of outcomes from local teams and ensures a smooth implementation of HR employee facing systems, which is a key factor in promoting an optimal employee experience in an organisation.

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Sophía Thijs

Sophía is one of the many examples how to have a multi-career path and yet respecting boundaries. She likes to share research's results why it's highly necessary that we need a new definition of 'being successful’.  We can all relate to the pressure of graduating, making money and being busy. In 2022 she shared in a TedX it’s not only about certificates and achieving goals to feel more successful and happy. It’s more about combining two perspectives at the same time: working towards a goal ánd being content through other ways of fulfillment whíle working towards that goal. Example: a professional football player most likely will score more goals per 90 min, depending on other success factors (team cohesion, having fun during trainings or staying resilient during fallbacks).

As a Flemish person she came into the assertive Dutch work culture and started working as a psychologist at the age of 23 by visiting multi-problem families at their homes. The university nourished the sole dogma that it's normal to work as hard as possible towards a post-master's degree, but she felt like a weirdo because she didn’t want to do this. It took years to dare to apply a different method in her work as a psychologist, specifically because she experienced herself what it's like to have mental illnesses within her closed ones; and to depend on professionals. By giving duo-lectures with a student, she shows the power of professional experience and personal affinity.

As a young adult, she found herself wanting to develop other talents besides the prescribed path of working as a psychologist. Now, 13 years later, she balances work between these areas:
- 3 days working as a psychologist with adults and companies (Faresa, Belgium),
next to 
- working 2 days in her own company Met Sophía. In the latter, she's been guiding students and adults to use exercise and nutrition as long-term solutions to obtain mental & physical fitness. She offers affordable help for students who need help in preventing burn-out or addiction,
- volunteering & training new volunteers of ngo @ease (ease.nl),
- running a co-living house and
- 1 day of not working; 'living' the life, while devoting time to relationships.

She balances life by expressing herself through singing, trail running and creating portrait photoshoots with her sister.

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Andras Wagner

After several years of experience in talent development and HR system analysis I teamed-up with colleagues from different angles of the world of HR and launched the #Decoding HR positions initiative. 

According to our experience, sometimes students have no clear picture of what their first days or months would really look like in an HR position, what is more, they are not necessarily able to fully understand phrases or context turning up in job advertisements due to lack of industry knowledge or experience.

We are not only helping you get a clear vision of what different HR positions and career paths mean or what a typical day looks like. We also describe possibly occurring conflicts and ambiguity of work. What is more, we can deep dive into your questions, assumptions and visions together, utilising any content you have found and bring along.

Join the workshop where I am happy to share my experience and we can deep dive into your questions about starting a career in HR.

Be part of the  #Decoding HR positions Kick-off campaign and fill the 3-min survey here:

https://qualtricsxmy3kb6jcyj.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8ugE3cihrq6Xuyq

Find us on UM Personal and Professional Development:

https://employabilityportal.maastrichtuniversity.nl/p/resource/34902897112872014

Find us on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/decoding-hr-positions/posts/?feedView=all

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Bart Zuidberg 

Police work is often about human behavior, their thoughts, decisions and emotions. Psychological knowledge is therefore relevant in a large part of police work. Bart Zuidberg works as an investigative psychologist for the Dutch police. Investigative psychologists apply their knowledge in the police operation. Practical examples are interrogation advice, risk assessment, assessment of reliability of statements and evaluate behavior on a crime scene.

2003 - 2007       Bachelor Cognitive Psychology - Maastricht University

2007 - 2008       Master Psychology and Law (Legal Psychology) - Maastricht University

2008 - 2012       Master of Criminal Investigation - Dutch Police Academy

2012 - 2016       Detective in multiple criminal investigations - Dutch Police

2018 - 2019       Postmaster education investigative psychologist - RINO group

2016 - now         Investigative psychologist - Dutch Police

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