​​​​​​Here, some of Sarah's close friends and colleagues look back over her life.​​​

After finishing her PhD at the University of Groningen in 1994 in the field of behavioural ecology, Sarah worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern, Switzerland (1995–1998) and the University of Leicester, UK (1998–2001). When Sarah moved to the Dutch research institute IMARES in 2002, she switched her research topic to fisheries science and management. This change coincided with her entry into ICES network through different expert groups, including the Working Group on the Assessment of Demersal Stocks in the North Sea and Skagerrak. In 2007, Sarah also became a member of the EU Scientific and Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries (STECF), on which she served to date.

In 2008, Sarah moved to Ireland to work at the Marine Institute and with University College Cork. She began work on a combination of her two research topics when behavioural ecology and fisheries science came together in behavioural economics. While still in Ireland, Sarah started working on the innovative use of incentives in fisheries management, trying to better understand how the behaviour of fishers could be influenced - or "nudged"- to achieve the objectives of fisheries management. This work characterized her approach and her determination; trying to alter the fishery management paradigm of TAC and quota was admirably courageous. While at the Marine Institute, Sarah was a positive role model, particularly for young scientists. She was ever willing to dive deep into almost any subject, and colleagues remember her talking with inspiration in any setting. 

Editor

The year 2008 also marked the beginning of Sarah's commitment to ICES Journal of Marine Science. She became one of the Journal's longest-serving, most engaged, dedicated and conscientious editors. The numbers bear this out: during her 14 years, she handled 221 manuscripts, more than almost any other editor. Her engagement with each and every one of these manuscripts was deep and thorough; she always provided authors with extensive, insightful and constructive feedback that helped them to improve the work, and its presentation. The Journal's editorial board meetings, and email exchanges among editors, were always enlivened and enriched by Sarah's probing and challenging interventions. Most recently, she was involved in developing the Journal's early career scientist (ECS) mentorship program, intended to train ECSs to become the editors of the future. What a role model she was!

In 2015, Sarah looked around for a place to spend the remaining part of her active career and chose the Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries in Rostock. As one of the most experienced scientists in the institute, she served on many high-level expert groups for STECF and ICES, was involved in teaching, and, most importantly, helped setting up a group dealing with behavioural economics and the future of coastal fisheries at the institute. Christopher Zimmermann remembers, “Sarah was challenging in the best sense of the word. She forced us into additional rounds of discussion on virtually every topic, thus helping us to separate knowledge from belief. We are very proud that she decided to work with us, and we still had lots of plans for the remaining years".

Within ICES 

Sarah has had a major impact within ICES network, through her work in different expert groups and, above all, through her remarkable contributions to ICES Annual Science Conferences (ASC) and other ICES symposia. Sessions organized by Sarah and her colleagues quickly became well-known points of attraction for conference participants. Martin Pastoors, who co-organized several sessions on presentation skills with Sarah, remembers how at the ASC 2009 in Berlin, Sarah insisted that all participants sit in the front rows of the large meeting room, creating a magical atmosphere with this​ unusual action. He also vividly remembers the Pecha Kucha session in Gdansk in 2011, where Sarah stepped up to improvise the talk of a presenter that had not turned up at the session. 

Dorothy Dankel remembers with fondness one of the highlights of her collaboration with Sarah: ICES ASC 2016 in Riga. There, Dorothy and Sarah co-chaired Predictably Irrational​, an outside-of-the-box theme session on behavioral science and fisheries. This theme session was a continuation of an ICES Science Fund workshop on behavioral economics and fisheries that Sarah initiated with Ciaran Kelly in 2014. 

Dorothy also remembers the playful aspects Sarah brought to science, not being afraid to try new ways of presenting, new ways of asking scientific questions, pushing ICES network out of its comfort zone. Sarah had a deep conviction that ICES needs to be challenged and had a deep understanding and drive for real interdisciplinary science. Sarah was also fundamental in bringing a pedagogic approach to these new ideas, as seen in the video that Dorothy and Sarah made together.