In December 2021, Djoeke Gerding, Emma Bakels and myself founded a national foundation (Stichting Samen naar de Kliniek). In 2023, our fourth board member, Koen Hoeijmakers, joined the team. Our mission is facilitate easy access to abortion clinics and to break the taboo on abortion in the Netherlands. We do this by training volunteers that will accompany people on their way to an abortion clinic.
Also in the Netherlands, the right to end a pregnancy is under pression, since abortion is still in the Dutch criminal law (Wetboek van Strafrecht). In addition, intimidators (people who intimidate (often pregnant but not only) people in the vicinity of abortion clinics) are more present around abortion clinics, blocking the easy access to our abortion clinics. We operate on a national level, with app. 100 volunteers in all cities that have an abortion clinic.
We are most active on Instagram.
You can find information on how to get a buddy on our website.
In June 2022, Eveline Snelders and myself founded a national, memberbased organisation for Assistant Professors in the Netherlands. We met during our PostDoc and PhD trajectories in Paris in 2015 and when we were both Assistant Professors, we realized that people in our position did not really have a voice in the Netherlands. Together with a core group of enthousiastic colleagues we explored the need of a national network and found that people wished for more representation and lobbying for Assistant Professors at a national level and for a larger network they could become a part of. APNet was born. I served as the President of this organisation in the first board from January 2022 until September 2023. Since September 2023, I fill the position as Treasurer of the organisation.
What does APNet do?
1. We lobby at national level and give sollicited and unsollicited advice to the Ministry of OCW, NWO, UNL and the boards of Universities.
2. We organsie (online) events to build a community of Assistant Professors across disciplines and across institutes.
We are most active on LinkedIn and X.
You can find information on how to become a member on our website.
The first time I became involved with EGU, the European Geosciences Union, was in 2016 as a team member of the Early Career Scientist (ECS) group of the Tectonics and Structural Geology (TS) Division. I took care of some of the social media posts on Facebook and helped organising events during the annual General Assembly of EGU in Vienna. From 2017-2019, I was the ECS Representative of the TS division, building and leading a team of 6-8 Early Career Scientists with posting social media blurps, blogs and events. From 2019-2021, I was first the deputy ECS Representative, after which I became the ECS Representative, advocating for the needs of ECS within the EGU. At the time, I was the only ECS-member within Council, representing approximately 50% of the members of EGU. I was also part of the EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) Committee (until July 2022) and the Outreach Committee.
What I appreciated most of time as and ECS Representative, was the feeling of working together on topics that would make a change for scientists early in their careers. I found working with my peers very motivating and inspiring and it also learned me a new/other ways of leadership: leading compassion and vision.
Even though I am not an ECS Representative anymore, I am still involved with more topical events and activities around scientific neocolonialism , fieldwork safety and bullying and harassment in academia.
Next to science and activism, I like to play table tennis. I started playing when I was 10 years old, and I still enjoy playing one of the fastest games in the world.
