Lara Wierenga is an assistant professor at Leiden University, and is working as a principal investigator on the Leiden Consortium of Individual Development. She received her PhD in 2016 at Brain Center Rudolph Magnus in Utrecht, and continued her research as a post doctoral researcher at the University of California in San Diego. In 2017 she started as a senior post doc in the Brain and Development Research Center. Her most recent work is devoted to a better understanding of genetic and environmental sex effects on brain development. Herewith she aims to better understand why some individuals are more susceptible to develop mental illness than others. She published a public science book 'Atlas van ons Brein' taking you on a graphical journey through neuroscience, in collaboration with Dirma Janse.