I started my biology studies in 2000 at the University of Groningen and specialized in molecular biology. For my PhD I joined Evolutionary Genetics, chaired by Prof. Leo W. Beukeboom, where I started to investigate the genetic basis of sex determination in Nasonia with Dr. Louis van de Zande as my main supervisor. After my cum laude PhD in 2011, I continued as postdoc in the same group during which I successfully elucidated the first (primary) signal of the Nasonia sex determination cascade. After a short postdoc at the NIOO (under the supervision of Prof. Kees van Oers and Prof. Koen Verhoeven), I started with an NWO Veni fellowship at the Laboratory of Genetics at Wageningen University in 2014, chaired by Prof. Bas Zwaan. Two years later a Tenure Track position opened at the Laboratory of Entomology, and I started on this position. In 2017 I obtained an NWO VIDI personal grant for my research into the evolution of sexual differentiation in parasitoid wasps, and in 2025 I obtained an NWO VICI personal grant to elucidate the female sexual differentiator in Hymenoptera and assess it’s evolutionary origin.