My interest in disease and health, made me start veterinary medicine training at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht. I obtained my degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine September 2009. An external research internship under supervision of the veterinary pathologist Judy St Leger, at San Diego SeaWorld on nocardiosis in Hooded Seals (Cystophora cristata) sparked my interest in pathology and this specialization within Veterinary Medicine. In October 2009 I started a veterinary pathology residency at the pathology department of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht. During my residency, I was lead researcher for studying the causes of mortality of cetaceans. To gain more experience into wildlife pathology I was a visiting resident in veterinary pathology within the Centre for Fish and Wildlife medicine in Switzerland. In February 2013 I passed the European Veterinary Pathology Board exam, after which I continued to work as veterinary pathologist at the Veterinary Faculty in Utrecht until I started my PhD at the Viroscience Department of Erasmus Medical Centre in October 2014, under supervision of Prof Thijs Kuiken in the comparative pathology group. From March 2017 I was the lead project researcher of ‘Zoonoses in the night’, a project investigating the zoonotic potential of viruses from bats in the Netherlands. September 2023 I defended my thesis 'How zoonotic viruses interact with their reservoir hosts' a topic on which I continue to work currently.