Since I was in high school I have been very interested in socio-environmental problems such as climate change, pollution and overfishing. Not surprisingly, I finished my bachelor’s degree in Biology and a master’s degree in Aquaculture and Marine Resource Management at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Wageningen is located in the middle of the Netherlands, far from any sea, so I was very happy to complete part of my studies at the University of Tromsø, Norway, and at DTU Aqua, Denmark, thereby experiencing and seeing the ocean every day.
I am a marine ecologist but I also have a background in marine management and governance. The MARmaED project is therefore an excellent opportunity to put my work as an biologist in a socio-economic perspective.
For my master thesis that I executed at DTU Aqua, Denmark, I described spatio-temporal patterns of functional traits of fish in the North Sea, and I assessed their relation to climate change and fishing. During my PhD I will continue to take a trait-based approach to study fish communities, and how climate change and fishing affect community structure, functioning and services. I will carry out my project at DTU Aqua in Denmark under supervision of Dr. Martin Lindegren and Prof. Ken Haste Andersen.