As an assistant professor in Dutch literature and culture, I investigate the intersection of colonialism and ecology, through the lens of water. With Prof Gaston Franssen I supervise Julée Al Bayaty de Ridder’s PhD research within the research project ‘How to Welcome the Water: Re-Imagining Water through Marginalised Stories in the Neerlandophone Space,’ focusing on delta ecologies in former Dutch colonies. Gaston Franssen and I co-edited the special issue 'Symbiosis' for Nederlandse letterkunde, offering an ecocritical and transhistoric perspective on Neerlandophone literature. In 2025, Dr Rachel London and I received a seed grant from the UvA Sustainable Prosperity Platform for the interdisciplinary research project ‘Why worry? Exposing the Invisible Threat in Our Drinking Water,’ about PFAS or ‘forever chemicals.’ My part of the project investigates how the emerging PFAS crisis exposes anthropocentric and colonial ideas in Neerlandophone discourses of water. I am seeking to establish interdisciplinary connections with scholars from the social and natural sciences to further explore the lasting impact of forever chemicals on environments and societies in the Neerlandophone space.

In 2022, I received the KNAW Early Career Award for research that used interdisciplinary and creative methods to bring marginalised voices in colonial texts to the fore. As a Dutch literary scholar, I question notions of Dutchness and literature, particularly regarding current standards of inclusion and diversity in research and education. For example, how can we recognise and investigate marginalised voices in Dutch history? How to analyse and interpret sources that do not follow traditional Western artistic principles? I also question the compartmentalisation of historical and modern literature by taking a transhistorical on slavery, extraction, and consumerism. This research led to the co-edited volume, with Dr Karwan Fatah Black, Slavery in the Cultural Imagination: Debates, Silences, and Dissent in the Neerlandophone Space (AUP 2024). I received the ASCA Article Award 2021 for ‘An Ambivalent View of Colonialism: The Spinozist Design for a Settlement in New Netherland.’

As a teacher, I am strongly committed to the development of a diverse and inclusive curriculum for the BA and MA Dutch Language and Culture, and the minor The Netherlands in Global Context. After finishing my PhD project at the UvA, in 2015, I have worked as a teacher at the universities of Leiden, Utrecht, Nijmegen, Greenwich (London), and Groningen, at departments varying from Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, and Literary Studies. I have taught Creative writing at ArtEZ Arnhem, and the international summer schools ‘Gender and Sexuality in Dutch Literature’ for IES Abroad Amsterdam, and ‘Art History of the 17th Century’ for the Utrecht Summerschool. In 2024, Feike Dietz and I received the UvA Humanities Education Award 2024, for the course ‘Literature, landschap en ecologie.’

I am a member of the editorial boards of Spiegel der letteren (Peeters Publishing Leuven) and De Zeven Provinciën Reeks (uitgeverij Verloren). At UvA, I am a delegate of the Exam Committee, member of the ASCA Board, and member of the faculty’s Diversity and Inclusion network.