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Laura Akkerman – Faculty of Medical Sciences 

studies the malaria parasite. She works on so-called transporter proteins, which get the right nutrients to the right place in the parasite. Laura discovered a crucial transporter protein, which the parasite needs in order to survive. The next step: finding out which nutrient this protein transports. To do this, Laura will learn new techniques at the University of Kiel in Germany, supported by the stipend. Eventually, her findings will contribute to the development of new antimalarials that make use of this Achilles’ heel of the parasite.

Natalie Nielsen – Faculty of Medical Sciences 

Natalie Nielsen is interested in how our brain selectively controls the content of working memory to guide actions and attention. Her current project focusses on the neural mechanisms of negative, repetitive, ruminative thoughts that tend to occupy space in working memory. She explores whether distraction can help us let go of these repetitive thoughts using behavioural and neuroimaging methods. Natalie will use the stipend to organise focus groups with patients and clinicians to develop a richer, qualitative understanding of the construct of rumination.

Joël Hendrix – Faculty of Social Sciences 

Joël Hendrix investigates the influence of entertainment media on openness towards underrepresented groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community. The aim of her PhD research is to gain deeper insights into the psychological processes underlying this influence. She investigates this by combining qualitative and quantitative research methods. Joël will use the stipend to attend a conference and to visit the University of San Diego, where she will share the findings of her PhD research and start a joint research project.

Harriet Yates – Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies 

Harriet Yates researches how commitments are attributed, maintained, and negotiated in conversation. She uses facial electromyography (fEMG), novel in this field, to measure subtle facial muscle activity as an indicator of implicit judgments. This interdisciplinary approach seeks to bridge pragmatic theory with empirical data. With the stipend, Harriet will attend a training workshop at UC Santa Barbara to refine her experimental skills, and attend additional conferences to share the outcomes of her research. She also hopes to organize a Commitments in Conversation workshop at uu77, to foster interdisciplinary discussion on this topic.

Marene Dimmendaal – Faculty of Science 

Marene Dimmendaal explores opportunities for Artificial Intelligence to support patients in their values clarification process. When medical decisions are preference-sensitive, it is important to have a clear idea of one’s personal values and preferences to ensure that the final choice is in line with the life of the patient. In her PhD, Marene focuses on stakeholder perspectives and on potential prototypes. Marene wishes to use the Stipend to establish a collaboration with medical scientists from Harvard and Chicago and to visit a conference.

Anne Lieke Ebbers – Nijmegen School of Management 

Anne Lieke Ebbers investigates the factors shaping the effectiveness of child protection systems in low- and middle-income countries. Specifically, she examines the determinants of birth registration, the impact of age-of-marriage laws on child marriage, the effects of parental migration on left-behind children’s educational and child labor outcomes, and the contextual, behavioral, and self-protective factors influencing child exploitation. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses, the research examines how legal frameworks and institutional interactions shape child protection outcomes. Anne Lieke will use the stipend for large-scale data collection on child exploitation, further investigating its intersectionality, as well as risk and self-protective factors.

Fleur Brinkman – Faculty of Science

Fleur Brinkman focuses on the role of the enzyme cytosolic 5’-nucleotidase 1A (cN1A) in the progressive muscle disease inclusion body myositis (IBM). At least one-third of the IBM patients have autoantibodies directed against cN1A. It is also known that cN1A forms accumulations in muscle tissue and in the cultured cells she is studying. These accumulations might play a role in the loss of immunologic tolerance to cN1A leading to autoantibody formation. In collaboration with the University of Washington, Fleur will study cN1A accumulation in more detail.

Rachel Kollar –Faculty of Social Sciences 

Rachel Kollar researches how the religiosity of European Muslims relates to their political participation. With the use of data from surveys and in-depth interviews and with a multidimensional approach to religiosity and participation, Rachel asks if and how the religiosity of Muslims encourages democratic participation. Are Muslims who pray more often inclined to vote more? And what about Mosque attendance and participating in demonstrations? Rachel will use the stipendium to visit the University of Warwick to collaborate with Professor Ayse Guveli. Together they will research the religiosity of the Dutch grandchildren of the original Turkish labor migrants and how this connects to various social and behavioral indicators.

Julia Neugarten – Faculty of Arts

Julia Neugarten studies how fanfiction – stories written by and for fans, inspired by existing stories, and exchanged for free online – adapts, transforms and rewrites cultural materials from Greek mythology. She uses a mix of methods from the traditional humanities and from computational literary studies to find out which aspects of Greek myth resonate with contemporary fans, and how they make changes to these ancient narratives to tell new stories and centralize underrepresented perspectives. Julia is planning to use the stipend for some international research stays and conference visits, to further develop her skills in computational methods for literary analysis.

Lieke Oosterveld-Haveman – Faculty of Law

Lieke Oosterveld-Haveman's research focuses on conflicts between the right to equal treatment and other fundamental rights in the context of employment law. She analyses how the balance between the various fundamental rights is now given substance in case law and legislation and what consequences this balance has for the strength of the right to equal treatment. Lieke wants to use the stipend for a comparative law research in Belgium, the attending of an EU conference on non-discrimination law and the organisation of a symposium leading up to her intended promotion.