She received her MSc and PhD in Chemistry from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. After obtaining her PhD degree in 2001 she worked for Philips Electronics and at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center in the USA. In 2011 she joined the faculty of Eindhoven University of Technology. In 2012 she received a prestigious VIDI grant from the NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) and in 2014 she was awarded a Consolidator Grant by the ERC (European Research Council). Her current research interests include the fabrication, modification and integration of 1-D and 2-D nanomaterials for (opto)electronics and catalysis.