PhD defence

Many people in the Netherlands have difficulty managing on their income. Professor by special appointment Wilco van Dijk, affiliated to Leiden University and Nibud, is researching what we can do to gain a healthier approach to managing our finances. His inaugural lecture is on 1 April.

Alumna Fleur van Elk graduated cum laude for the research master's program Cognitive Neuroscience and started her PhD trajectory at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. For Humans of Psychology, Fleur talks about studying, working and has advice for current psychology students.

Marlien van Mever delved into the analysis of tiny samples, cerebrospinal fluid from transgenic mouse models for example. She validated methods that can now be used to study brain diseases such as migraine and epilepsy. Van Mever will receive her PhD on 14 June.

‘I could hardly believe my ears when I heard that we had been awarded the Gravitation grant,’ says Berna Güroğlu, professor of the Neuroscience of Social Relations. This grant is awarded by the state, via NWO, to pioneering scientific top research. In terms of grants, this really is something special,…

Prof. Hanneke Hulst has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychology by the Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She will start on 1 February 2024 for a period of 3 years, succeeding Andrea Evers and interim director Serge Rombouts.

To what extent is sound a stressor to fish? And are behavioural and physiological phenotypes equally sensitive to disturbance by noise pollution?

A central and much debated topic in the study of language acquisition concerns the nature of the learning mechanisms that are required. Are the computational and learning mechanisms that guide learning about language structure special and specific to language or humans?

Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease are the most common neurodegenerative disorders. Unfortunately, no effective treatments are currently available to halt the progression of these neuroinflammatory diseases [1].

This project is aimed at 1) elucidating the role of attention in itch and pain, including orientation, and attentional disengagement (i.e., directing attention away) from itch and pain; and 2) modifiability of these attentional processes.

This project has two main aims: I. Determine when novelty promotes fear extinction. II. Discover the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these effects.

The master's specialisation School Psychology consists of three main parts: the mandatory courses, the thesis and the internship/extra electives.

Leiden is the ideal city for students. There is a wide variety of activities you can do next to your studies, to make the most out of your student life.

The master specialisation Clinical Neuropsychology is grounded in the neurosciences relevant to clinical neuropsychology with a strong focus on evidence-based practice.

Now you are aware of all admissions requirements and application deadlines it’s time to start your application procedure. Every student will need to start their application in Studielink. Afterwards, you will receive access to the online application portal of Leiden University.

Your tuition fee depends on a number of factors, such as your nationality and your previous Dutch higher-education qualifications.

The BA in Linguistics programme draws on Leiden University’s renowned expertise in linguistics to bring students the widest range of subjects and languages offered by any institute in Europe. As a student, you will have the chance to study nearly extinct languages, to be involved in experimental research…

In the first year, the Linguistics programme will provide you with a sound basis for specialisation, while training your academic competences. In the second year, you will choose one of our four specialisations. While focusing on this track in your second and third year, you may also choose electives…

It may seem as though adolescents do as they please, but they are more sensitive to their parents’ opinions than they would appear. The adolescent brain reacts strongly to parental criticism or praise. These are the results of a study by an interdisciplinary research group of psychologists and neuroscientists…

Disruption to the gut flora can affect your mental health. How could this knowledge be used to prevent stress-related disorders? This is what psychologist Laura Steenbergen will investigate with the aid of a project grant from the Leiden University Fund (LUF) and the Gratama Foundation.

Eveline Crone, Professor of Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology, has been awarded the NWO Spinoza Prize for her high-profile research on adolescent development. NWO announced the award on 16 June. What will Crone do with the award of 2.5 million euros?

The KHMW (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen) has decided to grant the Keetje Hodshon Prijs voor Taalwetenschappen to LUCL’s Jurriaan Witteman for his 2014 dissertation titled Towards a Cognitive Neuroscience of Prosody Perception and its Modulation by Alexithymia.

The Seasons of Interdisciplinarity are an initiative by the Young Academy Leiden that started in 2021.

How can young people grow up successfully and contribute to the present and future society? The consortium that is researching this will receive 22 million euros within the scope of the Gravitation programme.

There is a link in adolescents between brain connections and impulsiveness. Leiden researchers have discovered that these connections also predict which adolescents will make more impulsive choices two years further on.

It is true that girls perform better at school than boys, but this is not due to differences in brain development. This is the conclusion psychobiologist Lara Wierenga draws from a recent study. Publication in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Health psychologist Andrea Evers is one of the 19 new members, selected by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), who have been inaugurated on 16 September 2019. The Academy has now about 550 members.

Professor of Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology Eveline Crone will receive an Ammodo KNAW Award. This was announced by Ammodo, an institute for arts and sciences, and the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) on 25 January.

At the international Flux Society Congress 2022 in Paris, Lina van Drunen won the prize for best poster with her PhD research on how music influences brain development. At this annual congress, scientists and psychologists from around the world share their latest findings on developmental cognitive…

The company QuantActions promises that through capturing and analysing the data of smartphones it will be able to “detect important indicators related to mental/neurological health”. Neuroscientist Arko Ghosh is the company’s cofounder and talks in The Guardian about tappigraphy patterns.

On February 7th, Lorenza Colzato has become Professor by Special Appointment at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. Psychologist Colzato: 'My ultimate goal is to understand the neurobiological underpinnings of how to elevate performance up to an optimal level.'

Three Psychology students will present a poster of their thesis research on Alzheimer’s and dementia at the international conference AAIC Neuroscience Next. ‘I remind myself to recognise - without fear or shame - when I don't know something.’

In 2021 many of our students and staff won fantastic prizes and were awarded important research grants. This is our traditional review of these successes as the end of one year marks the beginning of another.

Psychology graduates acquire skills useful in a variety of jobs. Whether helping people with mental disorders, researching the brain or deciding who should be hired at a company, psychologists can do it.

Now you are aware of all admissions requirements and application deadlines it’s time to start your application procedure. Every student applying for a programme at Leiden University will need to start at Studielink, the national online registration system for students who want to follow a degree programme…

The application procedure is divided into four parts.

Speech Prosody 2024 includes three workshops.

There is not a day without language: we use it to read, to write, to communicate. But do you ever wonder how you learned to speak your own language as a child? And how, as an adult, do you learn new languages? Linguistics has the answer to those questions. In the BA Linguistics at Leiden University…

After a big two-day conference, the Growing Up Together in Society consortium has officially begun. Researchers from seven universities will spend the next decade looking at how young people grow up as engaged and resilient adults. Leiden psychologists explain how they will do so.

Based on the results of a language-switching experiment, PhD candidate Fatemeh (Simeen) Tabassi Mofrad MA and Professor Niels Schiller have discovered that the traditional categorisation of brain areas is not sufficient. They published their research findings in the scientific journal NeuroImage.

Fatemeh (Simin) Tabassi Mofrad has recently received a project grant (€ 25,000) from LUF/Gratama Foundation for her ideas in investigating sex-by-genotype interactions in brain functions. She has a multidisciplinary research perspective which enables her to look at research issues from different angles.…

Rüya Akdağ is part of a research team with the aim of further studying social anxiety. The Leiden psychologist receives the grant for her doctoral research on the role of emotions and cognition in the emergence and occurrence of social anxiety in adolescents.

How do digital technologies affect adolescent mental health and resilience? How do we foster a secure online environment? How should we deal with increasing rates of online crimes among adolescents? During the mini-symposium ‘The effect of the online world on adolescents’, presented by the interdisciplinary…

How can we view societal challenges from a different perspective? At the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), Robert Zwijnenberg, Emeritus Professor of Art and Science Interactions, will call for more collaboration between artists and scientists.

The Casimir Research School and the Graduate School Experimental Plant Sciences will be participating in the first Graduate Programme. This was announced on Wednesday 12 August by Minister Plasterk (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science). Leiden University is a partner in both schools. Nine Dutch…

Brain researcher Elseline Hoekzema has discovered that the structure of the brain changes during pregnancy, particularly those areas related to social functions. These changes persist for at least two years after the mother gives birth. Publication in Nature Neuroscience on 19 December.

What happens in the brains of people with psychiatric illnesses? With a €23.23 million gravity grant, scientists from different fields will search for biological causes over the next decade. ‘By joining forces, we hope to improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with these diseases.’

Lotte van Dillen has been awarded a NWO funding for a research project in collaboration with Wilhelm Hofmann of the University of Cologne and Henk van Steenbergen of Leiden University about hedonic compensation.

IBL-PhD-student Michelle Spierings delivered a great performance at the FameLab national final on the 21st of April. She is now also happy to be back behind her desk.

Andrea Evers has received an NWO research talent grant with Jelle van Leusden as the PhD candidate. This grant enables them to start a research project to examine whether automatically regulated responses, such as the circadian rhythm, can be conditioned during sleep.