What is your role at LSHTM?
I am a third year PhD student in the infection biology department, with Prof. Chris Drakeley and Prof. Susana Campino. I am part of the London Interdisciplinary Doctoral (LIDo) programme.

Tell us a bit about a project that you are currently working on?
My projects focus on Plasmodium falciparum genomics and transcriptomics, to investigate drug resistance, as well as human-to-mosquito transmissibility. I am currently working on projects in Mali and Uganda. I recently spent a month in Northern Uganda, collecting and processing malaria blood samples for RNA sequencing, with the aim of identifying transcriptional variation in malaria isolates with decreased artemisinin susceptibility.

When and how did you start working on malaria?
During my medical education I took on hospital rotations in Uganda and Rwanda, where I saw a lot of children suffering from malaria. Upon graduating, I decided to make the switch to academic research instead of clinical medicine. I initially worked as a research fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, investigating the in vitro activity of epigenetic inhibitors against asexual and sexual malaria blood stages. Wanting to work with field samples, I came to LSHTM for my PhD.

Where are you from?
I am from a small village in the Flemish part of Belgium, where I grew up surrounded by apple and pear farms.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I don’t remember and in all honesty I’m still not entirely sure.

What’s your favourite place?
That is difficult to answer! I love big cities. There is so much energy and the possibilities are endless.

‘When I’m not working, I am…’
Travelling, caring for my (too) many house plants or making pottery.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Celebrate every success, even if it seems small. It is easy to always be striving for the next goal, but take time to celebrate along the way and enjoy the journey.