dr. M.N. (Michelle) Servaas

I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher on the Therap-i project of dr. H. Riese, prof. dr. R. Schoevers and D.C. van der Veen. In my PhD research, I investigated the neural mechanisms underlying neuroticism to gain insight into why individuals scoring high on this personality trait are more vulnerable to develop psychopathology. After my PhD, I continued to pursue my research interest in (vulnerability for) psychopathology by investigating it on different levels, including affect, behavior and the brain, and developing methods to integrate findings across levels. First, I joined the iLab (UMCG) to develop statistical methods to establish a coupling between experience sampling methodology (ESM) data and brain network organization in remitted depressed patients and healthy controls. Second, I joined the Apathy project (UMCG) wherein I developed statistical methods to investigate functional brain connectivity dynamically and couple this with actigraphy data in schizophrenia patients with high levels of apathy. Besides research positions, I have a position as health psychologist. I have worked for two years at the specialized department for anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders (University Center of Psychiatry (UCP), UMCG) and currently, I work at the department for auditory hallucinations (UCP, UMCG). During the Therap-i project, I will implement ESM research methods in the clinic to provide patients and clinicians insight in the patient’s unique symptom profile and to guide decision-making for personalized interventions.