University of Groningen
In the heat of the moment
Soto Padilla, Andrea
DOI:
10.33612/diss.109887653
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Publication date: 2020
Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database
Citation for published version (APA):
Soto Padilla, A. (2020). In the heat of the moment: How Drosophila melanogaster's response to
temperature is modulated by sensory systems, social environment, development, and cognition. University of Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.109887653
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Acknowledgements
The wonderful adventure of my PhD started as a grand, unchiselled, and disorganized dream that required the intervention of wonderful people to finally come true. First of all, I would like to thank my trio of supervisors, three inspiring souls without whom none of this could have happened. Prof. Ody Sibon and Prof. Hedderik van Rijn, your challenging questions and well-thought comments always pushed me to consider multiple sides of the same problem and motivated me to think outside of the box and of my comfort zone. Thank you for always lending me an attentive ear and for constantly be willing to meet and discuss all sorts of issues related to my progress. You truly made me a better scientist. Prof. Jean-Christophe Billeter, your constant push for excellence, your honest approach to life, and your uncanny sense of humor kept me constantly on my feet, making me intolerant to any excuses and pushing me to believe in my work, my colleagues, and my self. You taught me to always follow my heart and never loose hope, while always remembering to use my brain and keep a strong sense of humor. This made me better at what I do but also at who I am, and I would never have the words to fully thank you for this lesson.
To Pieter Bosma, Rick Ruijsink and dr. Mark Span, I am enormously thankful for all your help with the technical components of this project. Pieter, thank you for your wonderful work with the tracking software, without which this research would have been close to impossible. Rick and Mark, the temperature-controlled arena in which all of this happened would have not existed without you. Thank you for all the hours placed into transforming it into a reality, for all the questions answered during weekends or late in the day, and for always making room to help, despite the busyness of your daily life. You were truly constant lifesavers without whom the project would have drowned.
Thank you also to Gerard Overkamp for all your practical and technical help throughout the years. I have no idea how we would have survived without your constant assistance, your incredible ability to solve all technical problems, and your knowledge on where to find what every time we needed anything. Thank you for ensuring that we always had a neat lab, that all flies were well kept, and that all equipment worked as wanted. Our
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lives would have been much harder without you in ways that I am sure we cannot even imagine.
I am also incredibly grateful to my students without whom things would have moved much slower and life would have been a little bit more boring. Thank you Maryam
Najafiam, Kevin Keijzer, Laurens de Kroon, Tim ten Bulte, Boyd Metz, Lïse Berentsen, Paulien Janssen, Sophie van Sonneveld, Rutger Boesjes, Wiam Bouisaghouane, Mees van der Meiden, and Ralph Bennen. You made my work
much more interesting by asking smart and unexpected questions, proposing innovative ideas, and always keeping the energy levels up. I enjoyed each of the projects in which we worked together and deeply thank you for all the help that you brought into the final results. In particular, I am grateful for having been part of the master projects of
Tom Alisch and Sanne Lamers. Tom, working with you was a delightful trip full of
interesting conversations, deep questions, and a constant sense of marvel. I was delighted to hear you walked into Harvard -of course you did- and I will be curious to see what you come up next. Wish you all the luck and also that you take yourself a bit less seriously.
Sanne, you became a beam of hope through our project together. It was impossible not
to be enthusiastic when working together; seeing you taking on challenges despite the fear and growing in confidence with yourself motivated me to push myself too. Also, thank you for that wonderful translation of the thesis summary, title included. Whatever you choose next, I am sure you will shine at it. I cannot wait to see the world that you help build.
Of course, I also cannot forget the other supervisors and students around my project that help make it the awesome experienced it turned out to be. To Prof. Ido Pen, thank you for bringing your expertise to one of the chapters, for all the extensive conversations regarding statistics, and for your never ending support despite how simple or ridiculous my questions could be. Prof. Bregje Wertheim and Prof. Martine Maan, thank you for always having a door open to provide perspective on any topic, for constantly being enthusiastic about one’s ideas, and for always being willing to give a helping hand in any way you could. To dr. Joke Bakker, Pleunie Kraak, Wanda Douwenga, drs.
Diana Koopmans, and Henriette Nieuwold, thank you for consistently helping me
solve all sorts of issues, from uploading information to the University’s server, to figuring our reimbursement forms. You honestly help me navigate the complex University system and make me feel it was not the intricate organization it seemed at first glace. Thank you also Marina Boon, Robert van der Mijn, and Kevin Ike for your short collaborations with diverse aspects of my project. They were excellent experiences that helped define the edges of our technology better and understand how much time accomplishing anything requires. I wish you all the best in the projects you are currently undertaking. Thank you also to the Faculty Technical Support of the Faculty of Science and Engineering for quickly and efficiently helping with all the mechanical needs related to my project. And thank you to all the other personnel within GELIFES and the Cell Biology
Department at the UMCG, it would have been impossible to succeed in this project
without the sense of community at each of this groups. Thank you for always making me feel welcome.
Next, I would like to thank the other brave souls with whom I had the pleasure to share this ride. Meghan Laturney and Jenke Gorter you were the first to introduce me to the world of Drosophila research. Meghan, you always had the most interesting questions regarding culture and language differences and I appreciate every second of conversation about them. I learned from you patience with your own students what a good supervisor looks like, and I am glad to have shared the lab with such a joyful and intelligent person. Science is definitely much better with you in it. Jenke, you were always an example of order and excellence in every aspect of life and thanks to you our lab took shape and our common tasks had order. I still remember those first coffees when it was hard to find a topic to talk about and we were both careful around each other. I am glad that changed and that now we can call each other friends. You have taught me what it feels like to rely on people and that there is nothing more satisfying than staying true to yourself. You also showed me Elfia, for which I will always be thankful. I cannot wait to see what else you accomplish and how beautiful your family grows. Pinar Kohlmeier, Tiphaine Bailly,
Xiaocui Wang, and Mario Santos Mira it was a pleasure to share the lab with you. I
loved every single of our conversations, all the trouble we got into during the Genes and Behaviour course, and all the interesting things that each of you had to teach. Pinar and
Mario, it was really fun to work together, despite having to accommodate to each other
and working with a terrible schedule. You are both heroes for daring to get into something that requires you to be sun to sun in a closed chamber. Tiphaine, I will always admire your energy. I was constantly impressed at how you could do all the necessary things for your project, while participating in all the sports and never loosing your smile. Keep being such as great example for all of us. Xiaocui, thank you for always bringing a positive spin to every encounter, you can truly make all rainy days feel like the best day ever. Please never stop being so passionate and invincible, it truly sets the bar for those around you.
Claire Duménil and Snigdha Mohan, you were fantastic lab colleagues to share a
space with and I am thankful for the time we got together. The lab was fun and much more interesting because of you. Adithya Sarma I am thankful that we got to meet. I look forward to more intense conversations on all topics and perspectives and to more shared boxes of donuts. Your bravery and optimism are an example to follow, and I thank you for having shared part of your journey with me. Please keep in touch, as I am sure your life quest is just beginning. Jeroen Alkema, dude, it was a pleasure to witness the amount of passion you give to your projects. Thank you for sharing your geeky and quirky take on life on every conversation and for always doing your best to keep life interesting. I wish you a world of interesting challenges in your future undertaking. Mr. Mark
Dobrovolski -Gleb- I am thankful for all of our conversations and for the chance to
learn about your adventures. Rarely one meets someone who dares to be so authentic and sincerely searches for the best version of himself. I hope to get to see what you choose to do next. And for Phillip Kohlmeier and Thomas Verschut, our short time together makes me think the lab is lucky to have you both. Hope it brings the experience you were looking for (you are in for a treat, it is a great place to be).
This ride was also great due to the other PhDs in our very busy office. Shane Wright and Tiziana Gobin, thank you for being excellent bench mates. It was great to have you around, and not have to fight ever for our own space. Shane, I really enjoy all the lunch talks and I that was not the only loud person around (honestly, it was very relaxing).
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to smile. Neeraj Kumar, I will always be thankful for your insightful conversations and well-analyzed opinions. You always made it fascinating to search for the answer to every question and it was always easy to come to you to with whatever thought one was trying to resolve. Thank you for always being present when needed. Asmoro Lelono, I am very grateful for the chance of sitting in front of you. You were always willing to share a smile and endlessly had kind words for those around you. I wish you all the best in your next project and all the love within your family. Nele Zickert, I am thankful for the chance to call you a friend, for every pizza in unknown places, for the delicious homemade dinners, for the most fantastic wedding cake, and for the most awesome thesis cover. I love hearing all your stories and having someone that perfectly gets how pleasurable an afternoon at home can be. Cannot wait for another shared dinner to sit at the same table again.
Elodie Wilwert, our honorary fly member, thank you for always being a calm presence
independent of where we happened to be. I appreciate all of our conversations back to back, the inside jokes we developed (yes, apple smell included), and all the house moving that we ended up doing together. I am thankful for your straightforward approach to everything, for the calm with which you face problems -and from which I have so much to learn-, and for happily consider you a friend. Thank you for agreeing to being my paranymph, despite the distance, and for the occasional Skype call. We definitely need more of those.
For my peeps in the PhD Day Committee and in GRIN, thank you. Emilia Bigaeva,
Floor Velthuis, Antonija Marjanovic, Bart Noort, and Marieke Adema, you
were the perfect team to organize a conference with (and for anything else, I am sure). You made our project fun, efficient, useful, and simply satisfying. It would be a pleasure to work again with any of you and I am sure you will raise the bar of any place you choose to go to. For the girls of GRIN, Floor Velthuis, Susana Figueroa, Emilia
Bigaeva, Vera Carniello, Magdalena Wójcik, and Isadora Lopes Alves, thank
you for joining me in the crazy idea of recreating this organization. It was fantastic to sit in those cafés every so often to talk about our lives, the craziness of the PhD, and what we wanted to change for the better. Thanks to each of you we managed to leave a little legacy in our beloved RuG. Susana, gracias por los cafecitos extra, con pláticas sobre matrimonio, hijos, parejas y compras de casa. Fue fascinante tener a alguien con quien platicar en nuestra lengua y agradezco que nunca permitieras que se perdiera el contacto. Siempre que sea necesario, acá tienes una amiga un poquito más al sur. Magda, thank you for all the extra dinners, the conversations about websites, and for showing me that a scientist can also love art and exercise. There will always be a bowl of pho for us to share.
Isadora, não tenho palavras para te agradecer por nossa amizade. Eu não sabia o que
era ter uma irmã até que nos conhecemos, especialmente para a parte idiota quando essa irmã te chama pelo nome de uma cidade. Obrigada por ser minha parceira em crime perfeita, de que você me chama babaca quando eu preciso, e de que você está sempre comigo em nosos momentos divertidos e não tão divertidos. Fico feliz em ver que nosso tempo ainda não acabou.
For the team that followed ours in GRIN, Mustapha Abdu-Aguye, Vania E. Rivera
León, Valentina Pegoretti, and Abel Soto Gamez, thank you for joining us later in
the GRIN adventure and for continuing with this important work. Vania, gracias por ser una vecina excelente, por siempre tener los brazos (y tu puerta) abiertos y estar lista para
compartir una taza de té. Eres todo un ejemplo de amistad y bondad de quien muchos podríamos aprender. Musti, thank you also for all the shared coffees and shared walks. It was always a pleasure to see the world through your eyes; you always inspired me to seek for a deeper meaning and to not take others too seriously. I have no doubt you will become a great leader with many interesting stories to share.
I would like to thank my assessment committee, Prof. M. Merrow, Prof. L.W.
Beukeboom, and Prof. B. Helm for all the dedicated time to read this thesis and
evaluate its quality and content. I hope you find it interesting and gained some inspiration for your own projects. The least, I hope you were all pleasantly entertained.
Last but not least, I want to thank my family. Irene Padilla y Carlos Soto, mamá, papá, siempre han sido una inspiración sin límite. Ya sea porque me empujan, porque me enseñan, porque no me dejan aceptar excusas, o porque se burlan de las cosas que merecen una burla, no estaría escribiendo esto si no fuera por su gran ejemplo y por su gran esfuerzo. Es un privilegio ser su hija. Gracias por siempre hacerme creer en mí misma y por motivarme a buscar mi propia vida. La fortuna de tenerlos es algo que jamás podré expresar, al menos no sin ponerme a llorar a media oración. A pesar de la distancia, siempre están en mis pensamientos y mis logros. Los quiero, siempre. Meus queridos sogros, Nadia Sader e Roberto Moratore, eu agradeço seu suporte sempre alegre e otimista, sim nenhuma dúvida de que tudo vai a ficar bem. É uma honra chamá-los sogros e eu não vejo a hora que a gente compartilhe mais.
