Laura Dijkhuizen MSc
PhD candidate plant physiology and junior teacher at the molecular plant physiology group of Utrecht University
Welcome again to my portfolio page! Here, I keep a record of my academic and educational projects, and plenty of personal ones too. Academically, I’m a biologist first, yet also a generalist with added experience in computer science and an affinity for physics. My free time is spent tinkering with electronics, climbing boulders, or practising scuba diving. If it’s sunny outside, I like to go out on my longboard, photograph the beautiful city of Utrecht, or go sailing. Friends appreciate (or dread at times) my never-fading enthusiasm for puns, so consider yourself warned. In my work, and as a plant biologist specifically, I want to do the science we need for a sustainable future. What the future holds exactly, I don’t know. But recently, I started dreaming an old dream again: a kids’ dream of becomming an astronaut. In 2021, I applied to the ESA programme, and since then, I’d love for nothing more than to combine my skills and develop further as an ESA astronaut.
Education
- MSc 2017 Environmental Biology at Utrecht University
- BSc 2014 Biological Sciences at Utrecht University
- BSc discontinued Applied Physics at Twente University
Before University, I studied at grammar school ‘minkema college’ in Woerden. Here I had an amazing time, my most fond memmories here are from the physics and biology lessons. But more even, of our very own high school musical where I played in the band.
Hobbies
One of my hobbies I’d like to showcase here, is photography. I usually photograph the city of Utrecht, just because it’s so photogenic and well, I live here! Find out more on Instagram or go to my photography page via the button below. Additionaly, I like shooting landscapes and macros of plants. Most of the photos here are made by myself, and most photo’s of me are made by my lovely girlfriend with whom I share this fun hobby. Some example pictures are available here: photography
Fieldwork
French Guyana Jungle
In my Master’s, a group of fellow students and I prepared and executed a two-week fieldwork campaign deep in the jungle of French Guyana. We prepared and executed experiments in various teams, ranging from assessing vegetation metrics to catching poisonous frogs. All while navigating the dense tropical jungle. Before we headed home again, we quickly visited the French Guyana space centre where I shot a vertical panorama of this Ariane 5 rocket.
Diving for seagrass
At the end of my Master’s, I joined a 6-month project diving for seagrass in a Swedish fjord. Here I fell for the amazing sport of dry suit diving. As part of this project, I dove recreationally to explore sampling sites and then went there snorkelling with colleagues in my drysuit to retrieve samples. Sampling entailed diving up to several meters deep with equipment, taking a big sample of the seafloor in which the seagrass had rooted, then carefully returning this to the surface. The rest of the experiment took place in the lab: with a custom-built “wave tank”, we examined susceptibility to erosion of these sediment samples.
Awards
Ambassadorship of Biology
For my plans to study seagrass in Sweden, the Utrecht Biologists (students) Society granted me the ‘ambassadorship of biology’ award.
Languages
Besides a predisposition for British English writing, I of course speak Dutch, my mother tongue. Additionally, I have learned to appreciate Swedish while living in Sweden and I try my best to maintain that skill. If required, I usually can find my way in German and perhaps even French, but when talking science, let’s keep it to English (that’s better for all of us).