"Hallo, ik ben Jen" ("Hello, my name is Jen")! I’m originally from Seaford, Virginia in the United States, but I am currently living in The Netherlands! The Netherlands is a country in Europe that sits west of Germany and northeast of France, and it’s pretty small. In fact, if The Netherlands were a state in America it would be the 9th smallest state, and it’s a whole country! So, who am I and how did I end up in a country that is only a little bigger than the state of Maryland? Let’s start at the beginning.
I studied biology and neuroscience in college and really fell in love with learning how the brain works. What makes humans think? And how does that change when we get sick? I completed my honors senior thesis on the effects of the Zika virus on brain development and I was excited to continue with neuroscience research in graduate school. However, I was also very interested in seeing how research worked on a global level – specifically things like drug development, universal health care, and international research partnerships. So, as I entered my final year of college I decided to apply for a scholarship that would let me study neuroscience in another country.
