DWSF Laureates 2022-2023
The LNVH board and bureau are pleased to announce the 2022-23 Distinghuished Women Scientists Fund laureates. This year the following 6 laureates will receive the DWSF travel grant:
Annelisa Cornel
Annelisa Cornel is postdoctoral researcher at the Prinses Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology. With the travel grant, she will visit the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Cornel researches immunotherapy as a treatment of high-risk neuroblastoma (NBL). Immunotherapy shows promise as an effective therapeutic strategy, however, identification of tumor-specific targets is hampered by the scarcity of protein-altering DNA mutations in NBL. Cornel investigates how to direct the patient’s immune cells towards novel NBL-specific proteins identified in the Princess Máxima Center. At the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, she will acquire the specialized skill set of working with an advanced technique for identification of these proteins. As a suitable mass spectrometer will be acquired when the cell therapy facility of the Princess Máxima Center opens in 2024, this will allow Cornel to implement my obtained skills upon return to the center.
Eefje de Bont
Eefje de Bont is Postdoctoral researcher at Maastricht University. With the travel grant, she will visit her international colleagues at Oxford University. Here she will compare the findings of her previous work on general practitioner (GP) out-of-hours care on urinary tract infections (UTIs) in the Netherlands with a large database on this topic in the UK. This is important, because UTI’s are one of the most common infections in primary care. Previous research showed that GPs find it challenging to diagnose UTIs and frequently divert from guidelines, leading to unwarranted antibiotic prescriptions and inefficient use of diagnostics such as urinary cultures. This visit will help de Bont acquire a better understanding how to improve future UTI management in general and during out-of-hours care specifically.
Nerea Arrarte Terreros
Nerea Arrarte Terreros is postdoctoral researcher at Amsterdam University Medical Centers. With the travel grant, she will visit the PhySense group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain to study the influence of cardiac conditions on stroke outcome using image analysis and in-silico models. The visit will allow her to combine Universitat Pompeu Fabra’s extensive knowledge on computer modelling and simulation of the heart and cardiovascular diseases and the Amsterdam University Medical Centers’ expertise on patient data and image analysis. The trip will allow Arrarte Terreros to gain more technical knowledge on computational fluid simulations and be actively involved in the development of such models.
Christel van Eck
Christel van Eck is Assistant Professor Climate Change Communication at the University of Amsterdam. She will use the travel grant for a research visit to Professor Michael Brüggemann at Hamburg University. Together they will work on a project investigating climate change depolarization. The start of the project will involve reviewing climate change depolarization papers and developing a critical argument. The goal is to publish, at least, a critical commentary paper on the topic. In the Netherlands, van Eck regularly gives talks and workshops about climate change communication and polarization. Hence, she can use the acquired knowledge on climate change depolarization in public outreach activities.
Loreta Muscarella
Loreta Muscarella is postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University. She researches sustainable materials, more specifically metal-halide perovskites. This type of material is particularly interesting, because it emerges as a good candidate for efficient solar cells. With the travel grant, Muscarella will visit an international conference for approximately 400 researchers working on sustainable materials. During this conference, she will present her work on novel environmental friendly perovskite-based materials. In addition, she will also organize a symposium, as a part of the conference. Muscarella will also use the travel grant to visit the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, where she will work on experiments that measure, for the first time, the dynamics of the degradation of perovskite materials under extreme conditions.
Rozanne Versendaal
Rozanne Versendaal is Assistant Professor of French Literature and Culture at Utrecht University, specialising in Late Medieval French Literature. With the travel grant, she will visit the Department of French Literature at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Here she will work together with an excellent community of researchers working on Late Medieval French literature, and expand her international network by attending the seminars that are organised within the Department. Additionally, Versendaal will have access to several extensive book collections of the 15th and 16th centuries, held by, among others, the Bibliothèque de Genève and the Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire de Lausanne. These libraries house the necessary literature in which to ground her research on the parodic, festive literature and culture of the Late Middle Ages.