Beyond the scientist: Annemarie Post

Annemarie Post, PhD candidate at Laboratory Medicine and member of the RIHS PhD council

Where and when were you born?

I was born on May 15^th 1991 in Vriezenveen, which is close to Almelo, which is close to Enschede, which I hope you are all familiar with.

Where do you live and with whom?

I live in one of the apartments over the gas station/apothecary at the St. Annastraat. Some people think it’s an elderly flat, but it’s not.

Who was your role model when you were a kid?

Mostly fictional characters. When I was young, I read a lot of books about girls who were good at horse riding, especially the Bianca books by Yvonne Brill. I always imagined myself the lead character, doing summer internships at horse breeding farms and such. Then when I was a bit older, I used to watch the series J.A.G., a legal drama about the U.S. navy. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a judge when I grew up.

Why aren’t you doing the same thing now as your role model (or do you?)

Since I never took horse riding lessons, I doubt I could make a job out of that (and to be honest, I’m always afraid horses will bite or kick me). I might have gone through with the judge idea, but then I went on a field trip with school to a DNA lab in Delft. From that day on, all I wanted was to ‘work with DNA’, though it took a very long time before I even knew what that meant.

What is the thing in your (work or other) history that you are most proud of?

I like the moment when a student/intern is done with his/her time with our department and it’s clear that they’ve learned something or that they’ve become very enthusiastic for the field.

What is it that you would like to achieve in work in the next 5 to 10 years?

I would very much like to finish my PhD. After that I plan to do a postdoc, but in the long run I’d like to have an impact on science communication in the Netherlands, in particular to make the general audience aware of why we are doing research and what the benefit can be for them.

For what can we wake you up?

Board games! But not Catan, Monopoly, Risk or anything like that... There are much better games out there nowadays.

What is your hobby and how good are you at it?

Sport climbing. I was introduced to the sport by my boyfriend, and now we climb together every Sunday. I would say there is an upward trend in my proficiency.

What is your biggest irritation?

When news papers or other media outlets publish about science, but it’s badly explained.

Who would you like to invite for dinner, if you had the chance?

 Queen Elizabeth. I haven’t even finished a PhD at 25, she was head of a country by then. I bet she has a lot of interesting stories to tell.

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  Laboratory Medicine