Proefschrift

First and foremost thank you Kateˇrina for taking a chance on me. I could not have done this without your willingness and ability to offer both guidance and incredible amounts of freedom. I am forever grateful for your unwavering support. Thank you Frank and Ralf for truly supporting me under such non-traditional circumstances. My short time physically in the Netherlands full of everything from evolutionary game theory and control analysis, to motorcycle rides and cucumber time, is forever etched in memory as one of the happiest times in my life. Thank you to the members of the assessment committee Prof. dr. G.B. Weiss , Prof. dr. ir. I.C.W. Arts , Prof. dr. P. Lambin , Dr. J.G. Scott , and Dr. W. Huang . I genuinely appreciate the time given to read my thesis and for being a part of this special day. Thank you also to Maastricht DKE for accepting me under such unusual circumstances and to Li , Monica , Katharina , Dieudonn´ee , and P´eter for showing me that it’s all possible. I am deeply grateful to Bob for answering my cold email all those years ago. You have filled the last third of my life with fascination and purpose. Your humility, enthusiasm, compassion, creativeness, and kindness are inexhaustible. I’m unable to write more through the tears. I could never express enough thanks to Joel for your honesty, tough-love, and mentorship. More tangibly, thank you for the introduction to Kateˇrina. Your intuition that we would be a good fit was, as always with your intuition, spot on. You’ve given me the irreplaceable gifts of a world view, life perspective, and true friendship. Thank you to Audrey , Mariyah , Stan , Anuraag , Kiran , Luiza , Chris , and Burt for coming into my life at the right time. Just when my PhD and COVID made me feel most alone, truly being a part of the lab made me fall in love with science again. Thank you to the Moffitt Cancer Research Center and everyone that I have had the pleasure of crossing paths with there. Thank you to Geri and Christine for keeping my scattered scientist brain on track enough to stay actually employed at Moffitt all these years. Your friendship, advocacy, and unwavering support are immeasurable. Thank you to Dr. Jingsong Zhang for having the patience and courage to work with a bunch of crazy mathematicians. Thank you to Kate , Natalie , Jonathan , Veronica , Kim , Philipp , Mark , and Arig for making it feel like Cheers whenever I visited. You are all amazing people and scientists who have inspired me personally and professionally. 156