When she was ten years old, Katinka van der Kooij (1981), won an adult literary competition with an illustrated story where she painted a gruesome image of a butcher. She never stopped writing since. In 1999 she started her Psychology studies at the University of Amsterdam to learn to better understand her characters. There she became interested in the mechanisms by which the brain translates information from the world into personal experience. She obtained a PhD in psychophysics at Utrecht University. Today, she works at the VU University of Amsterdam where she investigates how visual information is used to control arm movements.

Besides her scientific work, she writes short stories. In October 2008 a collection of her stories appeared at Dutch publishing house Prometheus, elected one of the best 15 debutes of 2010. As her writing is in Dutch, the English section of this website is mainly about her research.