After obtaining a Research Master degree in Clinical Psycholgoy at the University of Groningen in 2019, Merle started her PhD at the same university. Merle is one of three PhD students working on Don van Ravenzwaaij’s vidi project “Back to Bayesics: Solving the Reproducibility Crisis in Biomedicine”. In her PhD, she focuses on the statistical evaluation of efficacy for (bio-)medical treatments. Generally, Merle’s research is guided by the question of what constitutes “sufficient” evidence to make decisions. This interest is also reflected in her projects regarding replication target selection. Merle is a strong believer in team work and bottom-up movements, which is why she is a member of the Open Science Community Groningen and co-hosts ReproducibiliTEA at her faculty.