University of Groningen
Responses of Staphylococcus aureus to mechanical and chemical stresses
Carniello, Vera
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Publication date: 2018
Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database
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Carniello, V. (2018). Responses of Staphylococcus aureus to mechanical and chemical stresses. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.
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When I first moved to Groningen to start a PhD, everything was new. It was often rain-ing, people spoke a funny language, I knew very few people, and I was extremely ex-cited and scared at the idea of starting a PhD. After four years, I am happy to consider Groningen my home, and I met amazing people who are the family that I chose. Most importantly, I am growing from being a student into an independent researcher, and I need to thank many people for making this PhD journey an unforgettable experience. Henny, despite your busy schedule, you have always made time for my questions, meetings and papers, and you always had good suggestions on how to improve ex-periments. I am extremely grateful that, especially in the last months of my PhD, you were willing to sacrifice your weekends and evenings to correct my papers and help me to finish on time. I admire your scientific reasoning, precision, and eye for detail. I think I can say I learned a lot from you in these years, yet you can still find many mistakes in my papers.
Henk, your mentoring, guidance and supervision have been essential in my thesis. You always had advices on how to continue a project and great vision on the next steps to take to obtain good results. I admire your critical thinking, and your ability to transform separate experimental results in a coherent and interesting story. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, experience and ideas with me along the way. Brandon, before you were introduced as my daily supervisor, I was struggling with my project, at times even thinking about giving up. With your guidance, enthusi-asm, positivity, and the ability of looking at results from a different perspective, you changed my mind and transmitted your enthusiasm for science to me. Thanks to our discussions, my project gained speed and the results improved a lot. I always appreciated your mentoring and our talks about scientific and non-scientific topics. To the reading committee, Prof. Jiang Liu, Prof. Bert Poolman and Prof. Sabeth Verpoorte, thank you for taking the time to read and review my thesis.
Jelmer, thank you for introducing me to the concept of SEF. To you and the entire scientific staff, including Prashant, Patrick, Romana, Danielle, Chris, Theo, Roel and Inge, I am grateful for the scientific guidance as well as the non-research related conversations during coffee breaks.
Joop, the AFM guru, I admire your ability to solve technical problems and to find new ways to perform experiments. You have such a special connection with the AFM, that it stops working properly whenever you are not in the building. Thank you for
spending countless hours answering to my questions and helping with experiments. Together with the entire supporting staff, in particular Willem, Betsy, Minie, Willy, Gésinda, Melissa, Jelly, René, Ed, Renier, Corien, Marja and Hans, you have pro-vided invaluable assistance to my project, from technical introduction to answering specific research related questions. Dank jullie wel! Special thanks to Gésinda and Willy for organizing dinners and introducing me to Dutch cuisine, lifestyle and tradi-tions. Thank you for encouraging me to practice the language and taking time for small conversations in extremely slow Dutch.
Ina, Willy and Wya, thank you for helping me with all kinds of administrative affairs. Valerie, Marieke and Melissa, working at your project was a mixture of scientific discussions, hard work, laughter, drama and coffee. I enjoyed every moment of it and I appreciated that we always supported each other. I wish you all the best for the fu-ture, and I am sure that you will bring enthusiasm and success wherever you will go! All past and present PhD colleagues, you are so many that it is difficult to name all of you without risking to forget someone! During coffees, lunches and late-night chats in the lab, I learned a lot about different countries and cultures, and it is amazing how science brought us all together. I hope that we can stay in contact in the future and I hope I can one day travel and visit all of you!
Old and new office mates, René, Abigail, Niar, Yafei and Aldona, the work atmo-sphere would not have been the same without you! Thank you for sharing the many moments of everyday PhD life, from coffee and office chats to the failed (many) and successful (few) experiments in the lab. Special thanks to René for translating my thesis summary in Dutch, and for giving me a lift to conferences and Kolff days. Rebecca, you always had a motivating answer when I asked you for advice on PhD, career, experiments, papers and work-life balance. With your sense of humor, every coffee break turned into a fun and relaxing moment, recharging me with new energy to start working with enthusiasm. I am very grateful for that!
Susana, your positivity, enthusiasm and sense of humor are a great remedy that improved my mood even after the toughest days in the lab. When we started our language exchange, I could barely say a few words in Spanish. It is impressive how much we improved and learned from each other. Good luck with your new adventure and thank you for being my “honorary paranymph”!
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Ana, after meeting at the BME, our dinners and smoothies in the sun brought our relationship to a whole other level, and now I am happy to call you my friend and paranymph! You and Matt make a wonderful couple and I hope we will share many happy moments in the future.
Magda, we met at the beginning of the PhD and it was friendship at first sight. In these years, we grew up together as scientists, but we shared so much more than that! Ballet, sports, photography sessions, music, paintings, Spanish conversations and Dutch classes, cooking workshops, and much more! All these experiences brought us together and I am happy to have you standing by my side as my parany-mph on this important day.
Mina and Max, my life in Groningen would not have been the same without you! Thank you for every laughter, dinner, board game night, climbing, Christmas market and New-Year’s trips!
Angela and Bernhard, I cannot thank you enough for designing graphics and layout of this thesis! I could have never made it look so professional without your help. Thank you for all the support you have given to me and Xaver in these years, for all the vacations and nice times together. Most importantly, thank you for accepting me as part of your family!
A tutta la mia famiglia, è sempre bello rivedervi nei pochi giorni di vacanza, e sono contenta che nonostante la distanza riusciamo sempre a rimanere uniti! Un ringra-ziamento speciale a mamma e papà, per avermi regalato istruzione ed educazione, supportandomi economicamente ed emotivamente durante gli studi e il dottorato, permettendomi di arrivare fin qui. Mamma, so che è sempre difficile vedermi ripartire per Groningen dopo dei bei giorni di vacanza passati insieme, ma accetti sempre la sfida con entusiasmo e altruismo, sapendo che è la cosa migliore per me. Grazie, ti voglio tanto bene!
Xaver, you came into my life when I least expected it, and I am glad that you show no intention of leaving it any time soon! I know I am not making your life very easy, especially in these last stressful months of thesis-writing, but with your calm and kindness, you can always handle my Italian temperament. Somehow, you convinced me to follow you all the way to India, so you must have something special, don’t you? I love you!
