Dr. K. Rijkers is one of the staff neurosurgeons of the Academisch Neurochirurgisch Centrum Limburg. She’s specialized in epilepsy surgery. After obtaining her medical degree at Maastricht University in 2002, she started to work as a resident in the neurosurgery departments of Maastricht, Heerlen and Genk (Belgium). For a couple of years she combined this clinical work with scientific research in the field of neuromodulation and epilepsy. Between 2006 and 2009 she was appointed as a PhD student at Div 3 of MHeNs. She defended her PhD thesis entitled ‘stimulating fits’ in 2011 and finished her training in neurosurgery in 2014. She’s continued her scientific work as a neurosurgeon. Her main fields of interest continue to be epilepsy and neuromodulation; from bench to bedside and society. Research projects, that are conducted in collaboration with her colleagues from the section of functional neurosurgery and those from the Academic Center for Epileptology of the MUMC+ and epilepsy center Kempenhaeghe in Heeze, include attempts to unravel the pathophysiology of epilepsy,  novel ways of applying neuromodulation and projects on cost-effectiveness of surgical epilepsy treatments.