Nursena Aksünger is a PhD candidate in Economics at the Vrije University Amsterdam under supervision of Wendy Janssens and Menno Pradhan. She has completed her PhD training at the Tinbergen Institute. Her ongoing research project aims to understand the causal relationship between financial shocks and mental health. In a recent study, she is investigating the role of the interplay between genes and environment in shaping mental disorders, utilizing a quasi-experimental design that examines changes in the Dutch student finance system with Titus Galama.