In the 1980s, I trained as a visual artist and teacher of art and art history. After completing the Graphic Arts MTS and the VLVU teacher-training programme, I graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts, now known as the Breitner Academie. At the Graphic Arts MTS, I learned all about different printmaking techniques, such as etching, lithography and letterpress printing. At art school, the focus was mainly on painting and drawing from observation, art history and cultural studies, life drawing, printmaking, watercolour, and especially oil painting. In the years that followed, I specialised in painting with acrylics.

Driven by the poor job market at the time, but above all by a great curiosity, I retrained in IT and began my career as a computer programmer at Fokker Aircraft. I then spent more than two decades as an independent software analytics consultant for a range of large and medium-sized organizations, including ING, KPN, Calvi, the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration, Interpolis, Rabobank, ABN Amro and various government departments.

I completed an MSc in Information Management at the University of Amsterdam in 2013 and earned my PhD at TU Delft in 2018 on the subject of Evidence-Based Software Portfolio Management. During my doctoral research, I became fascinated by artificial intelligence (AI). Among other things, I developed the online learning program AI in Practice on edX together with ICAI and TU Delft, and helped launch the AI for FinTech Lab, an ICAI lab where ING and TU Delft conduct five years of research into innovative AI applications. And over the past few years, on the podcast Snoek op Zolder, I’ve had many inspiring conversations with AI researchers and practitioners about the state of artificial intelligence in scientific research and in practice.

I took a rather winding route through education myself—from mavo via graphic arts college, teacher training and art academy to a master's in Information Management, ultimately culminating in a PhD in computer science at TU Delft—so I know how important the seven checkmarks can be. That’s why, in 2021, I decided to put my knowledge and skills to work to make such a winding path possible for others at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, where I enthusiastically helped connect higher professional education students and SMEs with the rapid developments in innovative AI applications.

And since 2024, I’ve been fully focused on my next career as a visual artist. I’m currently working on a series of large (acrylic) paintings on the theme of Passages, based in part on monumental prehistoric stone structures—megaliths—that explore themes such as passageways, pilgrimages, and the question, ‘What would you do?’