I studied philosophy, biology (MSc) and psychology (MA) at the University of Amsterdam . My master thesis work was done at the laboratorium of Fernando Lopes da Silva at the institute for epilepsy (language and motor research by means of MEG), Meer en Bosch and with Pieter Roelfsema at the Netherlands Ophthalmic Research Institute (figure-figure and figure-ground segmentation). I obtained my Ph.D. (titled Scene Segmentation) in 2003 with work at the Netherlands Ophthalmic Research Institute and at the department of medical physics (AMC) with Henk Spekreijse and Victor Lamme as thesis advisors. In 2004 I became assistant professor at the psychology department of the University of Amsterdam and in 2009 associate professor. Apart from my research and teaching I am also: head of the Spinoza REC MRI Center and CEO / founder of Neurensics BV, an international company performing market and consumer neuroscience research.