The Team

Alexander Neumann, PhD

Postdoctoral research fellow

Alex is as a postdoctoral researcher studying the (epi-)genetics of psychiatric and neurological disorders. His current focus is on the role of epigenetic processes (DNA methylation, microRNAs) in child development and mental health, how these association vary over time, and whether they can help explain the intergenerational transmission of psychiatric problems from parents to offspring. Previously, Alex studied the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease and related biomarkers at the Kristel Sleegers Lab at the VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology, in particular rare variants, the transcriptome, X-chromosome and sex differences in Alzheimer’s disease. Alex completed his PhD in 2019 at the Erasmus MC. His PhD focused on the co-occurrence of internalizing, externalizing and other psychiatric problems, the construction of a multi-informant general psychopathology factor, and identification of genetic and neural determinants of this general factor.

Contact: a.neumann (at) erasmusmc.nl

Rosa Mulder, PhD

Postdoctoral research fellow

Rosa works as a postdoctoral researcher and is interested in how early life stress can get ‘under the skin’. Having a background in Neurobiology as well as Psychology, she is specifically interested how genes and the environment act together on biological pathways to affect mental health. During her PhD, she mainly focused epigenetic pathways, studying how our epigenome changes throughout life and its associations with stress. For this, she examined both the children of Generation R at the Erasmus MC as well as the children of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood at Bristol University. Currently, she takes a multi-omic approach, studying how genes and stress may affect our epigenome, our gut (microbiome), and our brain.

Contact: r.mulder (at) erasmusmc.nl

Koen Bolhuis, PhD

Postdoctoral research fellow and Resident in training

Koen Bolhuis is resident in training at the department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC. He is also a post-doc researcher at the department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology of the Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam, where he obtained his PhD with honours (cum laude) in 2019. His thesis was titled “On Psychotic Phenomena and Unruliness: studies on the Child Risk for Severe Mental Illness”. Is his research, he focuses on early risk and neurodevelopment of mental health problems using large population-based cohorts in collaboration with the Generation R Study, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Furthermore, Koen volunteers for Dokters van de Wereld, an NGO aiming to improve access to (mental) health care for undocumented migrants and he is a board member for De Jonge Psychiater, a platform for Dutch psychiatrists and residents. In the inDEPTH lab, Koen’s work focuses on examining gene-environment interplay on mental health as well as identifying neural correlates of externalizing problems, in collaboration with the ENIGMA consortium.

Contact: koen.bolhuis (at) amsterdamumc.nl

Marie-Pier Larose, Ph.D.

Visiting postdoctoral research fellow

Marie-Pier works as a postdoctoral researcher and is interested in identifying which preventive interventions and policies have the greatest potential to buffer social inequalities. Marie-Pier holds a Ph.D. in Public Health from the Université de Montréal (Canada). During her PhD, she investigated for whom childcare attendance was the most beneficial and by which developmental mechanisms these associations unfold (i.e., increase in cognitive abilities, lower levels of externalizing behaviors, lower levels of stress [measured with cortisol]). Her current research examines gene-environment interplay in the etiology of conduct problems. For this, she examines the developmental mechanisms between higher-order polygenic predisposition and later mental health symptomatology and academic achievement. Marie-Pier uses data from the Generation R longitudinal study at the Erasmus MC, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children as well as Challenge Longitudinal Study at the University of Turku (Finland). Her post-doctoral fellowship is funded by the Quebec Research Health Fund (Canada).

Contact: mplaro (at) utu.fi

Mahnoor Sulaiman, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Mahnoor is a PhD candidate at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Erasmus MC, as well as an external PhD candidate at the Biomedical Data Science Department of LUMC. She is actively involved in a collaborative project called TEMPO, which utilizes data from multiple large-scale birth cohorts, including the Dutch Twinlife study and the Danish National Birth Cohort, to examine epigenetic timing effects on child mental health. For her PhD, Mahnoor will leverage this data to better understand the role of tissue and cell-type in these timing effects. Mahnoor earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Bilkent University. During her time as a graduate researcher, she delved into cancer research, specifically focusing on signal transduction in the PI3K pathway, and gained valuable experience in analyzing high-throughput mass spectrometry phosphoproteomic data. Driven by her passion for epigenetics and neuroscience, Mahnoor made a conscious decision to shift her research focus for her PhD. She found a perfect opportunity by joining the TEMPO project and becoming a part of the Twinlife study. This endeavour brings together her interests in neuroscience, epigenetics, and epidemiology, allowing her to explore the intricate interplay between these fields.

Contact: m.sulaiman (at) erasmusmc.nl

Jana Hermans, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Jana is a PhD candidate with the HappyMums consortium at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Erasmus MC. She obtained her BSc in Liberal Arts & Sciences at Amsterdam University College, graduated from Utrecht University with an MSc in Neuroscience and Cognition, and conducted research abroad at the University of Cambridge. She is passionate about neuroimaging research into psychiatric illnesses, specifically mood and psychotic disorders. Her doctoral research focuses on how to better understand the influence of maternal depression on children’s long-term neurodevelopment, behaviour and mental health. As part of her PhD, she is also completing a second MSc in Epidemiology. She is excited to learn more about population-based research and working with large datasets.

Contact: j.hermans (at) erasmusmc.nl

Tim Finke, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Tim is a PhD student at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology. He received a Master’s degree in Genes in Behaviour and Health at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, where he gained experience working with twin data, performing multi-omics analyses, and programming in R, Python and Unix/Linux. His desire to analyse genetic and environmental influences on behaviour in a context of mental health, led him to our department. During his PhD, Tim will study the role of epigenetic mechanisms in the intergenerational transmission of psychiatric risk from parents to offspring, including the characterization of circulating miRNA profiles in the general paediatric population, the genetic and environmental influences on miRNA profiles, and the role of miRNA as a potential marker versus as a mechanism of intergenerational transmission.

Anna Suleri, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Anna is a PhD student at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Generation R Study Group, both at the Erasmus MC (the Netherlands). She received a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine, and a Research Master’s degree in Clinical Epidemiology. Currently, she paused her medicine trajectory for her PhD, because she is very passionate about research. Anna is enthusiastic to study the involvement of the immune system in brain and mental health development. Specifically, she is interested to understand how activation of the mother’s immune system during the prenatal period influences long-term brain and behavior development in the child. She is also very excited to learn more about programming and different statistical methods along the way.

Contact: a.suleri (at) erasmusmc.nl

Kristina Salontaji, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Kristina is a PhD candidate at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Erasmus MC. She obtained a Master’s degree in clinical and fundamental neuroscience from the Vrije University Amsterdam, where she worked with human post-mortem brain tissue and integrated RNA sequencing data with GWAS summary statistics to learn more about cell type-specific expression of risk genes for neurological diseases. She is fascinated by the process of aging wants to make use of bioinformatics to contribute to our understanding of how we can live longer and healthier lives. Her research focuses on modeling biological clocks that can be used to study the underlying mechanisms of aging, especially neurodevelopment, epigenetics, and sex hormones. These biological clocks will be used to uncover the long-term consequences of adverse life experiences in childhood and to predict psychopathology later in life.

Contact: k.salontaji (at) erasmusmc.nl

Serena Defina, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Serena is a PhD student at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of Erasmus MC. Along her BSc in Psychology and MScR in Cognitive Neuroscience, she gained some experience in neuroimaging (EEG, fMRI) data collection and analysis and advanced behavioral modeling. Her current research focuses on the role of early-life stress in the development of multimorbid cardiometabolic problems and depressive symptoms. She is also completing her training with a second MSc in (Genetic and Molecular) Epidemiology. Serena is especially passionate about understanding the mechanisms through which mind and body interact in shaping a person’s health, including neurodevelopmental, behavioral and biological influences. She is also excited about new developments in AI-based tools for data mining as well as open science initiatives.

Contact: s.defina (at) erasmusmc.nl

Mannan Luo, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Mannan received her Bachelor’s degree from School of Psychology at Southwest University, China and her Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology, at Beijing Normal University, China. She am currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Generation R Study Group, Erasmus MC. Her research interests are focused on the epigenetic profile of childhood psychopathology, including social problems, as well as children’s brain development such as ventricular volume. She hopes to learn more about the polygenic structure of neuropsychiatric disorders, and how these polygenic risks and the accumulation of environmental risk factors jointly affect mental health.

Contact: l.mannan (at) erasmusmc.nl

Isabel Schuurmans, MSc

Doctoral candidate

Isabel is a PhD Candidate at the department of Epidemiology at Erasmus Medical Center. She received a Master’s degree in Epidemiology and a Master’s degree in Child and Adolescent Psychology both from the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Besides, she has a great interest in neurological and cognitive development. Her research focusses on the development of ‘reserve’ in children and adults. The concept of ‘reserve’ suggests that early in life a cognitive and brain reserve, measured with cognitive tests and MRIs of the brain, is built up and that this reserve can buffer the effects of neuropathology later in life. During her PhD, she will investigate the role of genetic and environmental factors on the development of cognitive and brain reserve in childhood and adulthood, with a specific focus on early life stressors (pre- and postnatal) and mental health.

Contact: i.schuurmans (at) erasmusmc.nl

Nicole Creasey, MA (Cantab) MSc

Visiting Doctoral candidate

Nicole is a visiting PhD candidate from the Research Institute of Child Development, University of Amsterdam, and is interested in how early life experiences shape the epigenome and influence risk for mental health problems. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Psychological and Behavioural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and a Research Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology from Leiden University. At the inDEPTH Lab, she is investigating the influence of prenatal stress and glucocorticoid exposure on cord blood DNA methylation and later mental health symptoms in children from the Generation R Study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood, and the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. Her doctoral work focuses on the effects of parenting on children’s DNA methylation, how these effects are related to childhood conduct problems, and whether parenting interventions can mitigate these effects. Alongside research, she works with at-risk families as a parenting coach and co-led the implementation of the strengths-based Family Check-Up intervention in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Contact: n.l.creasey (at) uva.nl

Isabel de Graaf, BSc

Visiting student

Isabel is a sixth-year graduate student at Erasmus University Rotterdam. After finishing her bachelor’s degrees in both Criminology and Psychology, she decided to do a master programme that would fit these two disciplines perfectly: Forensic and Legal Psychology. Currently, she is doing her research internship at the Generation R Study where she is conducting semi-structured clinical interviews (K-SADS and SCIL) with 17/18 years old participants. For her dissertation research she will analyse data of the Generation R study, to see whether cognitive executive function in childhood will predict aggression in early adolescence. Her research interests lie in identifying individuals that are prone to engage in delinquent behaviour. In the future she would like to become an investigative psychologist or conduct research commissioned by the Dutch National Police. 

Jolien Rijlaarsdam, PhD

Former postdoctoral research fellow in the lab (2018-2021) and NWO Veni grantee

Jolien was part of the team as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus MC Rotterdam. During her PhD she examined integrative developmental models of child mental health problems, incorporating socio-economic status, the observed home environment, parental mental health, and parenting. During her time in the lab she worked on her NWO/ZonMW (Veni) funded project to investigate the associations between cumulative risk exposure, genome-wide DNA methylation and the general psychopathology factor.

Contact: j.rijlaarsdam@erasmusmc.nl

Sara Sammallahti, PhD

Former Postdoctoral research fellow and Marie Sklodowska-Curie awardee (2019-2021)

Sara is a psychologist and medical doctor who received her PhD from the University of Helsinki, Finland in 2018. After a one-year post-doctoral fellowship split between Erasmus MC, Netherlands and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, US, she received a LeadingFellows grant through the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Programme, and now works as a postdoctoral researcher at Erasmus MC. Her work focuses on early environmental exposures and maternal health in relation to offspring neurodevelopment. Within the Pregnancy and Childhood Epigenetics (PACE) consortium, she is coordinating multiple epigenome-wide association studies relating to maternal stress and child health.

Contact: sara.sammallahti@helsinki.fi

Elize Verhoeff-Koopman, PhD

Former PhD student in the lab (2018-2020)

Elize is a clinical child psychologist in training at Leiden University, the Netherlands. She received her PhD in child and adolescent psychiatry from the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands using the Generation R data. There, she examined the bidirectional association of sleep and mental health in children and the role of bedtime and family routines. As part of her PhD, she spent 10 months as a Fulbright scholar at the Bradley Sleep Lab of Brown University, Providence, RI, where she worked on sleep and developmental disorders, such as Autism and ADHD in children. In the inDEPTH lab Elize’s work focuses on assessing the relationships between childhood sleep, mental health and DNA methylation. 

Contact: m.verhoeff@erasmusmc.nl

Chiara Caserini, MSc

Former visiting student in the lab (2020)

Chiara obtained an MSc course in Clinical Psychology of Developmental Age at Sigmund Freud University, Faculty of Psychology, in Milan (Italy). During this time, she worked for seven months as research intern at the Department of Child and Adolescence Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus MC, within the inDEPTH lab. Here, she examined the link between DNA methylation and the general psychopathology factor in childhood, using data from Generation R Study, in a project co-supervised by Jolien Rijaarsdam and Charlotte Cecil. She is currently working at King’s College University as a research intern at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, in the Developmental Psychopathology Lab. Her research now focuses on the relationship between polygenic risk for inflammation and depression in adolescence, considering the moderating influence of life style. Research Interests: psychiatric genetic, psychiatric epigenetic, psychopathology of developmental age, nutritional psychiatry.