Friday 1st of March I defended my PhD thesis titled: 'Herbivores shape the seascape - Cascading effects of herbivores on the functioning of tropical seagrasses in a changing world' at Wageningen University & Research. It was an incredible day filled with lots of nerves, where I first got the chance to present the main results of my work to a general audience (you can access the recording here) .
Next, there was a lively discussion between me and my committee, consisting of Petra Visser Marieke van Katwijk, Juul Limpens and Nicole Esteban. I am very thankful for their time in assessing my thesis and the challenging questions they asked me.
After this, I got my diploma and was awarded the distinction cum laude, which was a huge surprise. Many thanks to my paranimfs Sara Pino Cobacho and Marisha Smulders who were by my side this whole time, and my co-promotors Liesbeth Bakker and Ingrid van de Leemput for their supervision throughout the years.
And lastly all my thanks to the one and only best supervisor of them all: Marjolijn Christianen! I'm very proud that you are the promotor of my thesis and so thankful for everything you have done for me in the past (almost!) 10 years since we started working together. What a wonderful journey it has been. On to many new exciting projects!
Marjolijn and me doing seagrass restoration work on Bonaire
The celebration after my PhD defense with colleagues, family and friends