Alumni

Valerie Betting
Valerie was PhD student from 2018 to 2023. She worked on the gene regulatory potential and mechanisms of the piRNA pathway in mosquitoes. She is now trainee patent attorney.

Jieqiong Qu
Jieqiong was a postdoc from 2019 to 2022. She studied piRNA biogenesis as well as transcriptional responses to viral infection in mosquitoes. She is now a Senior Scientist at Altos Labs, Cambridge, UK.

Samara Rosendo Machado
Samara was a PhD student from 2017 to 2022. She studies transcriptional host responses to viral infection in Aedes mosquitoes. She is now a Technical Support Specialist at GenDx.

Ruben van Iterson
After an MSc internship, Ruben stayed on as a technician in 2022. He is now a PhD student at the dept. Molecular Development Biology at Radboud University.

Lisa Chiggiato
Lisa worked as a technician from 2020 to 2022. She moved on to the Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research in Würzburg, Germany, to do a PhD.

Kirsten Janssen
Kirsten did a Bachelor internship in our group. In 2022, she came back to work for half a year as a technician, after which she enrolled as a MSc student at Radboud University.

Benoit Besson
Benoit was postdoc from 2017 to 2022. He worked on antivirals against dengue and the interactome of dengue viral proteins. He is now postdoc at IBMC in Strasbourg.

Finny Varghese
Finny was postdoc from 2016 to 2020. He has worked on endogenous viral elements, small molecule inhibitors of alphavirus replication, and spearheaded SARS-CoV-2 work in the laboratory. He is now Senior Scientist at the gene therapy company uniQure. 

Joep Joosten
Joep was PhD student from 2015 to 2020. He has worked on the characterization of proteins complexes responsible for the biogenesis of (virus-derived) PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs). He obtained his PhD cum laude (with honors). He is now postdoc at Radboud University working on membraneless organelles and stress granules.

Febrina Meutiawati
Febrina was PhD student from 2016 to 2020 on a LDPD fellowship from the Indonesian government. She worked on small molecule inhibitors of dengue virus replication. In 2023, she successfully defended her thesis and she now works as a scientist at Exeins Health Initiatives in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Inge Rondeel
Inge was technician in 2018 and 2019 and has now moved to the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht.

Billy Palmer
Billy was a guest scientist from Sept-Nov 2017 and from April-June 2018, visiting the lab as a EMBO short term fellow from the University of Edinburgh to work on immune evasion by a DNA virus of Drosophila. He went on to do a  postdoc at the University of Colorado. 

Bas Pennings
Bas was technician from 2014-2018. He is now technician at the biotech company Khondrion. 

Susan Schuster
Susan was PhD student from 2013-2018. She defended her thesis ‘Antiviral RNA interference in insects and mammals’ on December 17, 2019. She is now project manager at a Clinical Research Organization. 

Rob Vogels
Rob was PhD student in the lab from 2014 to 2016. He studied the role of microRNAs in viral infection of Drosophila. He is now lecturer at HAN University of Applied Sciences in Nijmegen.

Erika Girardi
Erika was postdoc in the lab from 2014 to 2016. She studied biogenesis and function of piRNAs in Aedes aegypti. She is now Assistant Professor at the University of Strasbourg, France.

Sarah Merkling
Sarah defended her PhD thesis ‘Resistance and tolerance to virus infection in Drosophila’ on January 2016. She moved on to study mosquito-virus interactions as a postdoc in the lab of Louis Lambrechts and is now CNRS scientist at Pasteur Institute and was recently awarded an ERC Starting Grant.

Koen van Cleef
Koen was a postdoc in the laboratory. He studied different aspects of antiviral RNAi and identified novel inhibitors of Dengue virus. He now works as a project leader at Vaxxinova.

Walter Bronkhorst
Walter defended his PhD thesis ‘Small RNA-based antiviral defense in insects’ on Nov 21, 2015. He next studied small regulatory RNAs and germ cell biology as a postdoc in the lab of Rene Ketting at the Institute for Molecular Biology in Mainz, Germany. He is now senior scientist at TropIQ Health Sciences.

Joël van Mierlo
Joël was the first PhD student to join the lab in 2009. On Jan 10, 2014, he defended his thesis ‘Viral suppression of antiviral RNAi in insects’. He is now a senior scientist at Micreos Food Safety in Wageningen.

Minh Nguyen
Minh joined our lab as a MSc student for an internship from Jan – July 2009. After her graduation, she joined us again for a few months (April 2011 – July 2011). She  went on to PhD and postdoc positions at the dept. of Human Genetics, Radboud University Medical Center.

BSc and MSc Students
Over the years, many students joined the lab for their BSc and MSc internships.