Tom Beckers

In this episode, my guest is Prof. Tom Beckers. He is a professor of psychology at KU Leuven. His work focuses on the role of learning and memory in psychopathology, especially anxiety, addiction, and ADHD. As you will hear in the interview, he often emphasizes reflecting on one’s values when doing science and making those values a priority. He is passionate about his work and a really good communicator of it. I hope you’ll enjoy this episode as much as I did!   If you’re interested in specific parts, you can skip to them directly here: 01:00 Years in academia 01:20 Did you choose academia or did academia choose you? Neither. 06:10 Journey in his research field 8:30 Current research questions 13:00 New directions: Pavlovian compensation 17:30 Inspirations when doing research and finding new research questions 19:30 The biggest changes in academia: the good and the bad 25:30 Advice for young scientists 27:00 People in academia that he looks up to 28:00 Importance of “no egos” in science 32:50 Typical week of an academic 36:40 Four Loko Effect