Past
After finishing my bachelor, the decision to pursue a master’s felt natural. I had come to see myself as a user-centered designer with a strong interest in social design and someone who uses psychological insights to shape meaningful, human-driven designs.
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Driven by a curiosity to deepen both the technical and psychological skills to incorporate in design, I set out to pursue a double degree in Human-Technology Interaction (HTI) and Industrial Design (ID). I completed the HTI pre-master and, in my second year, combined an exchange at Chiba University to serve both programs. In the second semester, I followed HTI courses.
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However, as I progressed, I realized the HTI master did not align with my expectations. I found it lacked space for creativity, with a strong emphasis on coding and mathematics, while my interest and initial intention in persuing a double degree lay in the psychological and interaction-driven aspects of HTI. I ultimately decided to stop the double degree and continue solely within ID.
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Even so, my time in HTI was valuable. It taught me a lot about psychology and social sciences and, most importantly, about myself. It helped clarify who I want to be as a designer, and it has given me a new lens and sensibility to design from a different perspective.
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Alongside my studies, I also developed a deep interest in research. This started in my bachelor and continued throughout my master, where I worked as a research assistant on several topics. At the same time, I worked as a designer at Cocosmos. These experiences shaped my perspective and direction as both a designer and researcher.
Year 1 (2022–2023)
The first year focused on building a strong base in psychology by finishing my pre-master HTI. Courses like Introduction to sychology & technology, Social psychology and consumer behavior helped me create a basic understanding of psychology and understand how people interact with systems. DUIET helped me develop my technology skills as I wanted to improve these and incorporate in my M1.1 project. Constructive design research (CDR) and my M1.2 really allowed me to explore doing research and learning more about this. To get out my comfort zone I chose to work in a studio setting with CDR and M1.1, which was challenging but helped me learn about myself and let me to hone new skills.
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Year 2 (2023–2024)
During my exchange at Chiba University, I expanded my cultural and creative perspective while fulfilling requirements for both ID and HTI. My exchange mainly inspired me by the interculturality, working with different cultures and universities. Also Japan’s design aesthetic with its minimalist and natural style really spoke to me. The second semester I continued with the master HTI where I deepened my understanding of Human–AI Interaction and Human–Robot Interaction, while courses like Supercrunchers helped me explore data-driven design and I gained overall psychological knowledge. Despite deciding to end the double degree, this period clarified my interests and enhanced my skills as a designer.
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Year 3 (2024–2025)
In my final year, I wanted to gain more understanding of Design for Behavioral Change and wanted to improve my aesthetics skills mainly through interaction by following Interactive Materiality. Then I the end I wanted to combine all my new learned skills and knowledge in I my final master project, which created a research-focused, user-centered final design.
Present
I think of myself as a designer-researcher, for me, design is the way I explore ideas, learn about people, and try to give something back to the community. My works pulls inspiration out of psychology, runs on curiosity, and aim to turn complex findings into tools that anyone can use.
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During my masters I discovered that research isn't just something I like, it is the work I want to keep doing. That's why I now hold a position as junior researcher at Tilburg Universitys School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, pursuing a PhD with the Tranzo group.
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My PhD looks at trust in AI tools inside hospitals: what people mean by trust, how it shows up in daily work, and how higher trust can increase adoption. I use co-design with ethnography so that findings come straight from practice and, in turn, feed back into new insights.
Future
Looking ahead, I want to keep growing as a researcher, digging deeper into ethnography and learning a wider mix of tools. I get excited from multidisciplinary projects, and I hope to keep finding spaces where I can listen, share ideas, and create valuable connections.
I still don’t know exactly what path I’ll take after the PhD, but I do want to stay close to the design community. Designing for people-through research, good teamwork, and problems that matter-will always sit at the center of my work.