I am a passionate early career researcher with a background in neurobiology and psychology. My research focuses on the multitude of internal (e.g. brain functioning, cognition, mental health, gender) and external (e.g. social interactions, culture, context) factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of substance use disorders. As a PhD candidate at the Department of Developmental Psychology of the University of Amsterdam, I contributed to multiple lines of research on alcohol and cannabis use disorders, covering a wide range of topics from unraveling the fundamental neural underpinnings of addictive behaviors to the role of social interaction and cultural attitudes in substance use. As a postdoc at the Department of Psychology, Education & Child Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, I will continue this work by setting up a large-scale international experience sampling methods (ESM) study in which I will focus on the interactions between (neuro)cognition, mental health, and cannabis use in both medicinal and recreational users. Ultimately, I hope my research can inspire others to embrace the complexity of substance use disorders - treating individual differences as crucial pieces of the puzzle rather than a nuisance to overcome – in order to improve treatment outcomes.