I was born in the Netherlands but moved to the Caribbean at an early age. Back to the Netherlands again to study biology at the University of Utrecht. I really love to work and live in the tropics so I did most of my internships abroad: studying stingless bees in Brasil and corals in Curaçao. My professional life was again in the tropics - Suriname, India and Sri Lanka, Niger - and Bonaire where I have been for the last years, working in the marine coastal area