Our PhD's/PD: 

Noemi La Bella (PhD)

Noemi La Bella is from Italy, and she obtained the M.Sc. in Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Bologna. She specialized her M.Sc. studies in observational astronomy at radio wavelengths, carrying on a project focused on the analysis of Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) data. Currently, she is a PhD student at Radboud University and a member of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration. Her work for the DBHC concerns the collection, calibration, and imaging of supermassive black hole radio observations. She loves playing the piano and chess!

Steven Bloemen (PD)

Steven is project manager at Radboud Radio Lab, where he coordinates astrophysical instrumentation projects such as the development of the BlackGEM and MeerLICHT telescopes. He obtained his PhD on compact binary stars and stellar variability at KU Leuven, Belgium, in 2013. Together with Peter Jonker, Steven will set up the DBHC Citizen Science project. 


Ilham Bouisaghouane (PhD)

Ilham holds a master degree in Theoretical Physics and a master degree in Education. She will be doing her PhD in Astronomy education at the University of Leiden in collaboration with the Amsterdam University of Applied Science (AUAS) and the DBHC.


Iris van Gemeren (PhD)

My name is Iris, I'm from the Netherlands and did my Master's in theoretical physics at Utrecht University. During the master research I focussed on theoretical modelling of gravitational waves from black hole binaries in alternative gravity theories. During my PhD I will continue to specialize further in the direction of testing gravity models and the black hole solutions within using gravitational waves. Further interests lie with physics education, reading, writing and going climbing with friends!


Jildou Hollander (PhD)

Jildou recently finished her master's degree in theoretical physics and wrote her thesis in the string theory group at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). This research focussed on the AdS/CFT correspondence, specifically on holography from symmetric product orbifold CFT's. Her research for the DBHC is conducted in the string theory group at the UvA as well. Aside from physics, her passions include dancing and modern kung fu.


Koen Lotze (PhD)

Koen is doing his PhD in the Energy, Materials and Systems group at the University of Twente. He is working on the cryogenic design of a mirror coating characterisation setup.

Jasper Maars (PhD)

Hi, I am Jasper Maars. I studied geology at Utrecht University. Now, I am working with DBHC at the TU Delft and TNO to identify the geology of Southern Limburg and surroundings. In the coming years I will be making a geologic model to prepare for the Einstein Telescope. 


Wanga Mulaudzi (PhD)

Wanga Mulaudzi is from Johannesburg, South Africa,  and started her career in Astronomy at the University of Cape Town by completing her undergraduate degree with Astrophysics and Physics as her majors. She then pursued a Masters degree working with the MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration (MIGHTEE) Survey data. The focus of the project was to use modelled rotational velocities of galaxies to test the Standard Cosmological Model. She is now a PhD candidate at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy working with Prof. Sera Markoff, and funded by the DBHC, she will be improving the methods used to interpret EHT images and associated multiwavelength data.

Daniëlle Pieterse (PhD)

Daniëlle specializes in optical astronomy. Since 2018, she has been a part of the team behind the MeerLICHT & BlackGEM telescopes. Her MSc research concerned the characterization of MeerLICHT. After graduating, she conducted a feasibility study for ESA on the use of BlackGEM (and other Dutch telescopes) for asteroid discovery and characterization. At present she is doing her PhD at the Radboud University. Her research focuses on the discovery of electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave events with BlackGEM. In her spare time, she likes to go running and plays board games with friends.

Enrico Porcelli (PhD)

When I was a child, I used to look for something invisible in the empty spaces between stars in the night sky. Twenty years later “I have discovered” the Gravitational Waves! I have obtained my B.sc. and M.sc. in Physics at the University of “Roma Tor Vergata”, focusing my studies on Astrophysics and Cosmology. I specialized my M.sc. in hardware R&D for Gravitational Waves detection. Namely, I have been working on an improvement strategy for the Virgo Thermal Compensation System (TCS). I will be soon a PhD student at Nikhef working on a cryogenic suspension system for ET-Pathfinder, which is a scaled down version of the Einstein Telescope, the next-gen Interferometer for gravitational waves observation. In my free time, I play guitar and study Kung Fu. 


Emilie Skulberg (PD)

Emilie is a historian of science. She recently finished her PhD at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge. Specializing in the history of visual representations of black holes, she works from the Institute of Physics at the University of Amsterdam as a postdoctoral researcher funded by the DBHC. She is also a scholar in residence at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in Leiden. 

Aristomenis Ilias Yfantis  (PhD)

Aris was born in 1997 in Greece, and now works for the DBHC at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. Within the project he tries to estimate black hole parameters using available data. Also Aris is experienced in modeling accretion disks using GRMHD, calculation of radiation from accretion disks and alternative theories of gravity. Aside from his interest in black holes he plays chess, loves music and travels around the globe.

Xisco Jimenes Forteza

I am a postdoctoral physicist working in gravitational waves (GW) science with a strong expertise black hole (BH) physics, gravitational wave astrophysics and data analysis. My main research line concerns the numerical and theoretical modeling of BHs, GW waveform models and the development of statistical techniques used by the network of current and future planned GW interferometers. The upcoming detections and promising detector upgrades will demand the highest possible accuracy and generalization of our models to disentangle some the most exciting predictions of Einstein theory of gravity so let the show go on!

Rittick Roy

I am from India and received my bachelor's in Engineering Physics from IIT Bombay, Mumbai, and a master's in Theoretical Physics from Fudan University, Shanghai. During my master's, I focused on the tests of general relativity and fundamental physics using X-ray reflection spectroscopy and black hole imaging. Presently, I'm pursuing a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam. I'm a member of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration and my work focuses on bridging GRMHD simulations with the observed data from EHT using general relativistic ray-tracing codes, and parameter inference routines. 

Viola Spagnuolo

Viola earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees from the VIRGO laboratory in Naples, Italy. Her research focused on developing and testing an optical read-out system as a backup solution for LISA's inertial sensor mission, followed by work on an active system to reduce seismic noise of a double stage suspended torsion pendulum within the project of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. In 2019, she began her PhD at the newly established Gravitational-Wave group in Maastricht, where she developed a setup to characterize the mechanical properties of mirrors at room temperature for future upgrades to LIGO and Virgo. Recently, Viola joined the Nikhef Gravitational Waves Group to contribute to the development of a setup for measuring coating thermal noise at cryogenic temperatures. This research is part of the broader Einstein Telescope project.