Barbara graduated in 2013 as a Master in science of Biochemistry and Biotechnology. That year she joined the lab of Frank Van Breusegem and Joris Messens to work on cysteine-oxidation in plants exposed to abiotic stresses. She obtained an IWT-grant to work on this research topic. Currently, she is using a genetic probe to mine the sulfenome of plants exposed to abiotic stresses. She is working both in Arabidopsis and maize.