Joëlle was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where she stayed around just long enough to develop a strong dedication to dutch pancakes (”poffertjes”!!). She then moved to French speaking Switzerland at age 2, where she grew up and obtained a B.S. in Psychology at the University of Lausanne, followed by a Master in Neuroscience at the University of Geneva. During her time at the University of Geneva, she worked on delineating structural grey and white matter development in 22q11 Deletion Syndrome, a genetic disorder associated with a high risk for psychosis. For her PhD at Penn, she is thrilled to explore trajectories of brain development in both health and mental disorders, and is interested in understanding the role of sleep in these processes.