Kayla is a postdoctoral researcher in the Erasmus SYNC Lab. Her work focuses on how adolescents and young adults grow up in a complex and rapidly changing world, marked by various societal challenges (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, poverty). She specifically examines how adolescent and young adult wellbeing is shaped by socioeconomic hardship and future uncertainty. Kayla aims to shed light on how the developing brain adapts to challenges in the social environment, and how such neural challenges may foster resilience. Which vulnerabilities put some adolescents at risk to be disproportionably hit by societal challenges, and are there protective factors that might buffer against the potential negative impact on wellbeing. Additionally, Kayla investigates self-disclosure in the context of societal topics, which may be viewed as political or controversial (e.g., should adolescents aged 16 or 17 years have the right to vote?).
She is co-founder and social media officer of the YoungXperts youth participation platform. She is passionate about connecting science to society and policy. Kayla uses participatory approaches to actively involve youth in science and policy. She also engages in science communication and outreach activities.
Kayla is member of the ambition team on youth participation. Since 2020, Kayla is member of the Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee of the international Flux Society. She co-leads the Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) affinity group. Kayla was awarded the PhD Excellence Award for Best Societal Impact by the Erasmus Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Humanities in 2022. She was also awarded a travel grant by Flux Society in 2022. Together with her YoungXperts colleagues she received the Open Science Award for the collaborative work on inclusive youth participation within the YoungXperts platform. In 2022 Kayla was selected as Faces of Science by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Young Academy (De Jonge Akademie), and NEMO Kennislink.Green has a background in psychology (Utrecht University, 2015). After obtaining her bachelor degree, she continued with the research master Neuroscience & Cognition (2018) and the clinical master Neuropsychology (2017) at Utrecht University. She did her clinical internship at the Neurology and Geriatrics Department of the Spijkenisse Medisch Centrum, where is also obtained her BAPD (certificate in psychodiagnostics). She obtained her PhD in 2024 (cum laude) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Under supervision of prof. dr. Eveline Crone and dr. Suzanne van de Groep. Kayla examined the socioeconomic, social and neural determinants of wellbeing across adolescence and young adulthood.
Andrea is a Postdoc at the SYNC lab in Rotterdam. He is interested in studying how the social environment influences youth’s upbringings and decision making.
Andrea is currently finishing his PhD at the University of Amsterdam, where he specializes in designing behavioral experiments to study social learning strategies in adolescents and adults.
He looked at what types of peers are most influential within classrooms, what types of social cues (confidence, expertise, majority) people use when they look at others’ opinions, and wether following others is beneficial or not.
Andrea has a background in Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy and obtained his Master’s Degree at the Humboldt University in Berlin, where gained his first experience in measuring brain activity using EEG. In Berlin, he also worked as Research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Judith is a postdoctoral researcher at the Erasmus SYNC lab. She is interested in how adolescents are affected by and can contribute to societal challenges (e.g., climate change, social inequality). Her goal is to contribute to research that recognizes adolescents’ potential to be transformative frontrunners in society.
During her PhD project (2020-2024, Department of Psychology, Utrecht University) Judith studied how interventions that harness adolescents’ motives for autonomy and peer status can promote their climate-friendly behavior. Before her PhD, Judith obtained her bachelor’s degree in Psychology (2018) and research master’s degree in Development and Socialisation in Childhood and Adolescence (2020, cum laude) at Utrecht University.
Ties Fakkel is a postdoctoral researcher at the Erasmus SYNC Lab. His broader focus is on understanding how adolescents end up with a similar or different socioeconomic position compared to their parents. Specifically, Ties studies socioeconomic differences in adolescent psychosocial competencies and examines how these competencies contribute to socioeconomic outcomes in early adulthood, such as educational attainment, occupational status, and income.
At the SYNC Lab, Ties is primarily involved with The Urban Rotterdam project and YoungXperts. These projects provide unique quantitative and qualitative data to understand what young people in Rotterdam perceive as causes of poverty. Rotterdam has a relatively high number of people living in poverty, but Rotterdam also has a relatively high number of young people. Their insights have the potential to foster a more sustainable and resilient future for our city.
Besides collecting data on important topics, Ties is also highly motivated to disseminate novel research findings. Through his work at the SYNC Lab – but also through his initiatives at Addendum – Ties regularly strives to make science more tangible for a broader audience. According to Ties, co-creation is at the heart of new wave social science, a vision broadly shared within the SYNC Lab.
