Justine Vandendorpe, Data Steward at ZB MED in the NFDI4Microbiota Consortium

What’s your favourite pastime?

Preparing and eating the traditional Belgian dishes that my grandma wrote down in her notebook when she was a cooking student.

If you could choose a special power, what would it be?

Night vision, so that I could watch animals, such as owls, at night!

Which inventions do you admire the most?

Inventions by the naturalist John Muir, such as his alarm clock desk.

What do you like most about your job?

I really enjoy the international and interdisciplinary collaboration, both in-house and with other institutions.

Who would you like to swap places with for a day?

With the polymath Alexander von Humboldt, specifically when he was exploring the Americas.

Who’s your favourite character in literature?

Janie Crawford from “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston.

Who’s your biggest hero from the past or present?

Daphne Caruana Galizia, the anti-corruption activist who was killed after participating in the publication of the Panama Papers.

Who’s your favourite painter?

The surrealist René Magritte.

What quality do you value most in your friends and colleagues?

The quality I value most in people is empathy.

What’s your vision of happiness?

To be content with less.

And your favourite animal?

The volcano snail, a deep-sea hydrothermal-vent snail.

The questionnaire appeared in parallel in the ZB MED Annual Report 2021.

DOI (Digitalausgabe): https://doi.org/10.48664/b3ts-4×97