Marieke van Vliet – van der Graaff, PhD
“I am Marieke, an enthusiastic person who loves to sport. I strive to be the best and I love to see the bigger picture. On a daily basis I work to translate and visualize complicated matter so that everyone can consume it. I spark with creativity and I love to work in an innovative place with people who can challenge and inspire me.

Work experience
Malmberg / Sanoma Learning – Business Analyst & PO
2019 – now
Strategic Business Analyst / Product Owner
Later in the project I grew to a different role, more strategic / PO role. I was especially valuable in making the strategic plan for the project. Taking in all the different perspectives and get people enthusiastic about a specific plan. Creating a we-feeling, working together to make the plan happen.
My responsibilities and strengths:
- Pinpointing the core of the problem and acting upon it
- Understanding the view of the customer
- Determining priorities and setting boundaries
- Re-evaluating on the spot
- Connecting people
- Automating documentation
Business Analyst
As an analyst within the TEsting and ASsessment team at Sanoma Learning, I am partly responsible for setting up a new testing application. I am collecting business needs from many different stakeholders, either in interactive workshops which I organized and facilitated, or in depth discussions with the stakeholders or developers from other teams. I am working out the product vision and we successfully released an MVP. This MVP was based on a micro-services landscape which asks for clear requirements and responsibilities. I analyze the features and write the feature description and its acceptance the feature descriptoin with the developers so they are able to estimate how much work it will be. During development I’m standby to answer questions or do some last minute research on things that need some more in depth analysis.
More about my role as a business analyst at Malmberg
Podcast host & workshop creator
2020 – now
Bottomline – Business analyst
2018 – 2019
As a Business Analyst I am the link between developers, users, customers and business. I spend a lot of time analyzing algorithmic solutions to optimize the activity of the users. How do you find the right balance in your software solutions between technical possibilities and the daily practice? This requires detailed specifications and analyzes where I really have to go into depth to come to the right and specific answers. Give me a complex question, a good cup of coffee and you may not hear me for a few hours.
Sogeti – Software developer
2015 – 2018
I was involved in several projects as a frontend software developer.
- Worked with SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle, XML, Java, html, css and javascript.
- Young Professional of the year selection (watch the video).
- Developed a course for new employees.
Via Sogeti employed at:
Twinq – Software developer
2016 – 2017
Frontend developer, making new screens (html, css, javascript) and collecting the right data from the database (SQL, PL/SQL). working in a scrum/agile way.
Free University Amsterdam – PhD Human movement Sciences
2010 – 2015
Supervisors: E. Brenner and J.B.J. Smeets
Poster presentations
Vele nationale en internationale congressen onder andere Society for Neuroscience 2011 Washington, 2012 New Orleans, 2013 San Diego, EuroHaptics Tampere, NCM Amsterdam
Mondelinge presentaties
Vele nationale en internationale congressen onder andere MOVE meeting 2015 Amsterdam, IMRF Jerusalem, PacLab Leeds
Phd Courses
Linear algebra (Faculty of Sciences, VU University Amsterdam)
Writing a scientific article (Taalcentrum, VU University Amsterdam)
Sensory Systems (Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University)
An introduction to probabilistic models of perception (University of Groningen)
Donders Autumn School “Perception, Action and Control: Methods, Concepts, and Challenges”. 16-21 October 2011,
Researcher
Radboud university 2010, University of Calgary 2009
Setup, do and analyse experiments resulting in a scientific article
Education
2008-2010 MSc Clinical Human Movement Sciences, Radboud Univercity Nijmegen
2005-2009 BSc Biomedical Sciences, Radboud Univercity Nijmegen
1999-2005 Middle School (VWO) Titus Brandsma Lyceum, Oss.
Teaching
Educate students for their Bachelor Research Project (2012-2014).
Teaching groups of students in biomechanics. (2010-2012)
Teaching kids in swimming and skating.
Publications
Thesis
Thesis: Decoding actions – the planning of goal-directed movements. read it here
All publications
van der Graaff, M.C.W., Brenner, E. & Smeets, J.B.J. Vector and position coding in goal-directed movements. Exp Brain Res (2017) 235: 681. read it here
Kuling, I.A., van der Graaff, M.C.W., Brenner, E. et al. Matching locations is not just matching sensory representations Exp Brain Res (2017) 235: 533. read it here
van der Graaff, M.C.W., Brenner, E. & Smeets, J.B.J. Differences in curvature between constrained and unconstrained goal-directed movements to haptic targets. Exp Brain Res (2014) 232: 3445. read it here
van der Graaff, M. C. W., Brenner, E., & Smeets, J. B. J. (2014). Misjudgment of direction contributes to curvature in movements toward haptically defined targets. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 40(2), 802-812. read it here
van der Graaff M.C.W., Brenner E., Smeets J.B.J. (2012) Is the Curvature in Hand Movements to Haptic Targets in the Mid Sagittal Plane Caused by a Misjudgment in Direction?. In: Isokoski P., Springare J. (eds) Haptics: Perception, Devices, Mobility, and Communication. EuroHaptics 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7283. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. read it here
Kuling, I. A., van der Graaff, M. C. W., Brenner, E., & Smeets, J. B. J. (2014). Proprioceptive Biases in Different Experimental Designs. In M. Auvray, & C. Duriez (Eds.), Haptics: Neuroscience, Devices, Modeling, and Applications (pp. 18-24). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. read it here
Hobbies
-
Spend time with my family (husband and 2 sons)
-
Running, Calisthenics, Speed skating, Cycling
-
My podcast Mind your Tech
-
Designing and making clothes