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Academia is competitive, but keep your head up and could end up right where you belong, just like Joeri van Straalen.

In April 2019, Joeri began his PhD at the UMC with a focus on comorbidities, or co-occurring illnesses, in juvenile idiopathic arthritis patients. I sat down with Joeri to discuss his PhD a bit more and to learn about his rewarding, yet challenging, journey toward this stage in his life.

Juvenile idiopathic arthritis is an autoimmune disorder where the body begins to attack its own organs and tissues and usually appears before the age of 16. Joeri’s findings may have a number of impacts when it comes to clinical management of these young patients. For example, Joeri is currently working on building a prediction model for Uveitis, a form of eye inflammation that affects the middle layer of tissue in the eye wall. Considering this is a very common comorbidity (1 in 5 children affected), and can lead to blindness if not treated in a timely manner, developing this model to determine which children are at risk of Uveitis would be invaluable for clinicians. When it comes to his research, Joeri says: “I like it very much! It’s very applied research, and I like that the results really have the potential to impact clinical practice.”

These days, Joeri is also busy as a student enrolled in the Epidemiology Postgraduate master’s program at the UU. As a PhD student, he needed to enroll for a PhD program at the UU, and he spotted the Epidemiology program. Since he did not already have a master’s in Epidemiology, he was required to follow the whole master’s rather than just courses. “I convinced my PhD supervisors that this master’s would contribute to the quality of my PhD research. With the 13-month internship within this master’s, I am able to work on a chapter of my PhD thesis, which has been the biggest advantage for me!” In the end, it has worked out really well for him; however, he did face some hardships along the way.

So my advice for everyone interested in an academic career is don’t be upset if you don’t get your dream job right away! There will always be competition in the academic world.

“I initially applied for other PhD programs and was not accepted. I started working at the Athena institute as a research assistant, and that’s where I found out about this program.  I applied, and ultimately I was chosen. So my advice for everyone interested in an academic career is don’t be upset if you don’t get your dream job right away! There will always be competition in the academic world.”