Natalie Vermeulen holds a degree of Electrotechnical Engineer with majors in photonics and the title of Doctor in Engineering with greatest distinction and works as a post doctoral research at the Department of Applied Physics and Photonics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels. Her outstanding research work is entitled “Silicon Raman devices with enhanced efficiency and reduced heat dissipation” and covers the area of silicon-on-insulator-based lasers, amplifiers and wavelength converters, the working mechanism which relies on a light-matter interaction called Raman scattering. Silicon-on-insulator based Raman devices may have a considerable impact in the optical information and communication technology and could also support industrial applications by operating at mid-infrared wavelengths. Vermeulen is the author of 9 peer reviewed publications, 15 conference proceedings and 1 patent, and was invited as speaker at 4 international conferences.