Sander Lindeman, PhD

My research career started at the Department of Neuroscience at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. During my Master’s, I studied how brain cells change when memories are formed.

For my PhD at the same department, I focused on how different parts of the brain communicate over long distances to shape behaviour. In particular, I studied the cerebellum, an area best known for movement control, and showed that it can also influence activity in the brain’s primary sensory and motor cortex. In other words: the cerebellum doesn’t just help you move smoothly, it can also “tune” how the rest of the brain processes information and guides actions.

After completing my PhD, I moved to Okinawa, Japan, to work as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. There, I studied how the brain processes sensory information differently depending on context, especially whether something is linked to reward. We found that in the early olfactory system (the brain region that processes smells), responses to an odour can be selectively reduced when that odour predicts a reward. This kind of value-based “filtering” highlights how the brain prioritizes meaningful information.

BlinkLab’s mission excites me because it’s science and technology with a clear purpose: creating solutions that can genuinely make a difference. After years in fundamental research, I wanted my work to translate more directly into real-world impact.

When I saw what BlinkLab is aiming to do, it was an easy “yes”, as it felt like the right place to apply my skills to something meaningful and concrete.

I joined BlinkLab in April 2024 as a software developer and data analyst. On a daily basis, I work on turning data into clear insights and building tools that support the team and the platform we’re developing. That includes cleaning and analysing datasets, writing and improving code, validating results, and collaborating with colleagues to translate questions from the field into practical solutions.