After finishing her master Technical Medicine from the University of Twente, Myrte Schoenmakers joined the SiA team to work on research theme two. Her background focusses on combining scientific medical and technical knowledge for innovating and improving in health care. In line with that, her previous research works shows a variety of topics including techniques ranging from respiratory inductance plethysmography and subcortical electro encephalography to innovative methods, applied in various hospital departments and beyond, all for health care improvement for the individual patient.

“How accurately can the blood pressure (BP) be determined using a continuous, non-invasive monitoring system via the pulse transit time?”

Instead of the ambulatory BP monitoring cuff system, I aim to determine blood pressure values using impedance cardiography, bio-impedance and photoplethysmography techniques that can potentially be used more non-invasively in daily life. In addition, I will also contribute to developing a wearables-database, which is a dynamic, regularly updated overview of available wearable devices which perform continuous measurement of physiological signals. This database provides a method for well-informed selection of a wearable for (stress) research used for the SiA-toolkit that will be implemented in cohorts in a later phase of the Stress in Action project.

PhD student,
VU Amsterdam