Joëlle was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and grew up in French-speaking Switzerland. She earned her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Lausanne and a Master’s in Neuroscience from the University of Geneva, where she studied structural brain development in 22q11 Deletion Syndrome—a genetic condition linked to increased risk for psychosis.

Now a PhD student at PennLINC and recipient of an NIMH F31 NRSA fellowship, Joëlle uses computational psychiatry approaches to understand how the brain develops and how psychopathology emerges. Her first project identified patterns of coordinated white matter development that support cognition. She’s now exploring the fundamental organizational principles of white matter and how they relate to brain architecture and cognition. Alongside this, she’s pursuing a project on sleep and brain maturation in youth, using actigraphy to uncover how sleep shapes development.