Annemiek Veldsink

Annemiek Veldsink is an excellent and versatile student who has completed her student years in a special way. She has been following two very different degree programmes, almost parallel to each other. She started the Bachelor's degree programme in Philosophy in combination with the Bachelor's degree programme in Pharmacy, and then went on to the Master's degree programme in Philosophy at the same time as the Biomedical Top Master's degree programme in Molecular Medicine and Innovative Treatment. Her academic results are always at an exceptionally high level: cum laude or even summa cum laude.
In addition to her academic performance, Annemiek has successfully completed the Bachelor's Honours programme and has been engaged in a lot of other activities, such as a two-year membership of the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Science and Engineering. She was also the first vice-president of the Council and then the chairperson of an important Council committee.
As part of her top master, she did a research internship in Yale (New Haven, USA) and with her upcoming combined PhD programme in Yale and Groningen in the field of age-related diseases, she will, in the opinion of the jury, certainly continue to develop into an excellent, internationally oriented biomedical researcher. Her Philosophy degree will certainly help her with this, because, as she writes herself: ‘The critical reflection on the significance and impact of the scientific empirical evidence we provide in the laboratory demonstrates how biomedical sciences and society are intertwined and how we as scientists shape social definitions of what defines “life”.’
The jury finds this both a nice challenge and a good philosophical framework for her further research.