Annelies followed a non-conventional path. She has worked as a high-school teacher in Belgium after her first Masters study in Mathematics, with a focus on theoretical physics and astronomy. Wanting to explore nature’s big questions, she went back to the University where she studied for a 2-year Masters in Astronomy at the University of Leiden following a research track and writing her first paper as a result of her final project on young stellar objects.
She moved on to a PhD at the University of Porto, completing in December 2013. During her PhD she started enjoying the observational side of astronomical research regularly going on trips to Chile to observe with HARPS. Her PhD research was focused mostly on stellar atmospheric parameters and the connection between giant planets and stellar chemical composition.
After obtaining her PhD, Annelies was a postdoctoral researcher at the Universities of Porto and St Andrews where she started going to La Palma to observe with HARPS-N and focusing more on the exoplanet detection side. During the academic year 2017-2018, she was a lecturer for the widening participation programme for Scottish physics students at the University of St Andrews.
In autumn 2018, she moved to the University of Cambridge for a senior Kavli Institute Fellowship, further exploring small exoplanet characterisation as well as expanding her research into stellar variability and Sun-as-a-star observations. In Summer 2022, she moved to the University of Birmingham as an assistant professor in astronomy.
Annelies is a science team member of HARPS-N, PLATO, and PoET. She has obtained telescope time on a variety of ground-based and space-based telescopes and regularly performs the observations. She has served (as member and chair) in the OPTICON time allocation committee for 4 years and in the NASA-NSF Working Group on Extremely Precise Radial Velocities for 2 years. She is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society as well as the European Astronomical Society.