On the Spectrum
2lm5UyR
2lm5UyR
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
About <strong>the</strong> author<br />
ABOUT THE AUTHOR<br />
Laura Mary Elisabeth Blanken was born on <strong>the</strong> 29th of April 1986 in Amsterdam, <strong>the</strong><br />
Ne<strong>the</strong>rlands. She grew up in Naarden and in 2004, she graduated cum laude from <strong>the</strong> Willem<br />
de Zwijgercollege in Bussum. She went on to study Medicine at Leiden University. Laura always<br />
had a special interest in psychiatry and during her studies she took part in an honors program<br />
called ‘Psychiatric Disorders across <strong>the</strong> Life-span: A Biopsychosocial Interplay’. Her interest in<br />
neuroimaging was triggered by elective courses, such as “Imaging Technology” and “Cognitive<br />
Neuroscience”. As part of her scientific internship, she explored <strong>the</strong> field of stress research<br />
and studied <strong>the</strong> influence of <strong>the</strong> mineralocorticoid receptor activation on learning strategies<br />
and memory in mice. During her clinical rotations, her long-standing interest in psychiatry<br />
was fur<strong>the</strong>r confirmed at an internship at Curium, Academic center for Child and Adolescent<br />
Psychiatry and she chose Acute Psychiatry (Parnassia, Den Haag) and Child and Adolescent<br />
Psychiatry (Bascule, Duivendrecht) as elective and senior internships. In 2010, she graduated<br />
cum laude from Medical school. She went on to do clinical work at an outpatient clinic for<br />
children with disruptive behavior disorders at <strong>the</strong> Bascule, Academic center for Child and<br />
Adolescent Psychiatry in Duivendrecht. From January to April 2012, she visited <strong>the</strong> National<br />
Institutes of Mental Health as a special volunteer to perform a neuroimaging study under <strong>the</strong><br />
supervision of Dr. James Blair, at <strong>the</strong> Unit of Affective and Cognitive Neuroscience. In April<br />
2012, she started <strong>the</strong> work described in this <strong>the</strong>sis at <strong>the</strong> Department of Child and Adolescent<br />
Psychiatry and <strong>the</strong> Generation R Study Group at Erasmus MC-Sophia in Rotterdam. In 2013,<br />
Laura obtained a Master of Science Degree in Clinical Epidemiology from <strong>the</strong> Ne<strong>the</strong>rlands<br />
Institute for Health Sciences. From April to September 2016, Laura was a visiting fellow at<br />
professor Baron-Cohen’s Autism Research Centre in Cambridge.<br />
In 2017, Laura will start her residency in Psychiatry at <strong>the</strong> Amsterdam Medical Center. She<br />
hopes to go on to combine clinical practice and research in psychiatry.<br />
A<br />
233