She received her PhD in psychopharmacology at the Utrecht University on the topic “in search for animal models of female sexual dysfunction” under supervision of Prof. Berend Olivier in 2010. She continued her scientific career as postdoctoral fellow in the Ågmo lab at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, where she studied the intrinsic (sexual) motivational state of rats and the role of specific incentive stimuli. In October 2013, she started her independent research as associate professor using sexual behavior as a natural incentive-driven behavior to study the neurobiological mechanisms of the motivational system in rats.