People

PIs

Prof. Michiel Westenberg

Prof. Michiel Westenberg is the head of the laboratory. He has a long lasting interest in adolescent development and, more specifically, social anxiety in adolescence. Starting from a clinical-developmental perspective, he investigated social anxiety development from a normative as well as clinical perspective. This led to the longitudinal program social anxiety in normal development in which questionnaire research was combined with lab experiment and psychophysiological recordings: the Social Anxiety and Normal Development study (SAND). In his current program, he combines these perspectives in a unique new program, focusing on the role of genes and environment in the development of social anxiety in the broadest sense. 

Dr. David Heyne

Dr. David Heyne is associate professor and he specializes in the relation between social anxiety and school refusal. When coming to Leiden, he brought his clinical and treatment experience from Australia and set up a new treatment program for school refusal in Leiden. Currently, he is interested in the development and evaluation of interventions for young people who find it hard to attend school as a result of anxiety and depression (i.e., school refusal), including intervention with the parents of these young people, and with school staff.

 

Dr. Caroline Bokhorst

Dr. Caroline Bokhorst is assistant professor and has a strong interest in the interplay between genes and environment to understand social anxiety. For her PhD research she conducted a behavioral genetic twin study to estimate the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors on attachment relationships in infants, after which she developed an interest in social anxiety research in adolescents. Now, she is one of the first to combine these two research lines by studying the development of social anxiety using a family design. By testing three generations, she will be able to test effects of genes and environment on the emergence of social anxiety in families.

 

Dr. Anke Blöte

Dr. Anke Blöte is assistant professor and has an interest in both laboratory based research and field observations of social anxiety. By investigating the perspectives of others on youth with social anxiety, she provides a broader context to understanding this prevalent vulnerability in adolescence. Her recent studies focus on the social skills of socially anxious adolescents and how these are evaluated by adult observers, same-aged peers and the socially anxious adolescents themselves. The different perspectives are needed in order to determine whether socially anxious adolescents’ negative self evaluations of social performance are warranted.

 Dr. Melle van der Molen

Dr. Melle van der Molen is a cognitive neuroscientist who completed his PhD on the repercussions of genetic abnormalities on brain development and cognitive function in fragile X syndrome. His current interest is in the characterization of endophenotypes of social anxiety disorder by incorporating electrocortical and neuroimaging methods (EEG, fMRI), physiological indices, and cognitive-behavioral measures.

 

 

Post Docs

Dr. Anne Miers

Dr. Anne Miers is a post-doctoral researcher in the SAND team. She completed her PhD on cognitive aspects of social anxiety, drawing from a clinical perspective. Her current focus is on the development of social anxiety over the adolescent period, and different predictors of high social anxiety levels over time. Complementing this focus is an interest in longitudinal analyses techniques.

 

 

Dr. Esther van den Bos

Dr. Esther van den Bos is  a post-doctoral researcher in the SAND-team. Her current research focuses on the normal development of sensitivity to social evaluation during adolescence. She is particularly interested in the development of physiological responses to social-evaluative situations and how this may be affected by pubertal, cognitive and psychosocial development. Previously, she investigated implicit learning of artificial grammars and language-like structures, receiving her PhD from Leiden University and working as a post-doc at Cornell University.

 

 

PhD Students

Janna Marie Hoogendam, MSc

Janna Marie Hoogendam (MSc) has studied Medicine and Neuroscience, with a special interest to investigate the human brain using neuroimaging. She joined the Leiden Family Lab Study on Social Anxiety in March 2013 as a PhD student. Her PhD project, supervised by professor Michiel Westenberg and dr. Nic van der Wee, aims to profile endophenotypes of Social Anxiety Disorder using structural and functional MRI.

 

 

Research Assistants

 Senem Fincan, MSc

MSc. Senem Fincan is a research assistant in the SAND-team. Her focus within this project has mainly been on Ego development. Currently she is also co-ordinating the Social Anxiety Family Study.

  

 

Anita Harrewijn

Anita Harrewijn is a research master student from Leiden University and works as a research assistant in the family study about social anxiety. She focuses on an EEG project about profiling endophenotypes. Anita is interested in neuroimaging and developmental psychopathology. She’s particularly interested in the development of social anxiety, her Honours Research Bachelor Project was also about social anxiety.

 

 

Johannes Schouten

Johannes Schouten is a KNAW-research assistant on the project "Understanding and Treating School Refusal: Evaluation of the Dutch School Assessment Scale".

 

Master students Andreas Christodoulou Parthenia Dourouki Mirte Eekhof Caroline van Hartingsveldt Marleen Hoek Konstantinos Kouvaras Sanne van Luenen Marloes van Ooijen Jacky Pop Eefje Poppelaars Marco van Rooijen Laura Sakka Nadia van Santen Irini Serafeim Eleni Zachou

Alumni Anne ter Beek, MSc Anne-Jaan den Besten, MSc Willeke Brittijn, MSc Villy Cheilakou, MSc Laura Compier- de Block, MSc Yara Daw, MSc Jiska Dijk, MSc Corry Donner, MSc Menno A.J. Ezinga, PhD Judith Janssen, MSc Janet van Hal, MSc Marcia Kint, MSc Marija Maric, PhD Ellen Middag, MSc Katerina Papakonstantinou, MSc Myrto Roumelioti, MSc Hanni Saes, MSc Floor Sauter, PhD Lenneke van Schoonhoven, MSc Jacqueline Stam, MPhil Sindy Sumter, PhD Eva Thalassinou, MSc Silke Tönnies, MSc Tijmen Troost, MSc Serif Turkkal, MSc Vasiliki Vatali, MSc Nadine Vijlbrief, MSc Carlijn Zoetmulder, MSc Lisanne van der Zwet, MSc