I attained my BA in History and MA in Colonial and Global History from Leiden University, both of which I completed with distinction (cum laude). In my second year I enrolled in a course on Modern Imperialism and colonial wars, igniting a profound interest in military history and specifically in colonial warfare. It led me to pursue further research, starting with my bachelor's thesis, which involved a comparative study of German and Dutch colonial military culture on the basis of diaries and memoires. For my master’s thesis I returned to egodocuments to explore the use of fire as a weapon in the former Netherlands East Indies. Meanwhile, I completed an internship at the Section for Cultural-Historical Backgrounds and Information (CAI) of the Royal Netherlands Army, where I provided cultural awareness training for military personnel preparing for deployment. After graduating in 2024, I started as a lecturer in military history at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy, where I am currently also affiliated as a PhD candidate. Here, in 2024 and 2025, I taught the lecture series “Evolution of Armed Forces and Warfare” and was involved in organizing and guiding battlefield tours, including to Arnhem and Normandy.