Forensic Scientist, Netherlands Forensic Institute

In 1999 Tiest began studying for a Bachelor in Applied Sciences degree at Avans in Breda (NL) with a focus on molecular biology. During an internship at the University of Vermont (UVM) in Burlington (USA) he worked on a pilot project on Asthma and its signalling pathways.

For his final undergraduate project he collaborated with a PhD student on a project at the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) in Bilthoven (NL).

The title of that project was "Whooping cough and its protein Pertactin". In 2006 he began a Masters in Forensic Science at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The research for his Masters project was on "Identification of 15 animal species by a multiplex PCR" and was undertaken at the Netherlands Forensic Institute

(NFI) in The Hague and completed in 2008. Since 2009 Tiest has been employed at the NFI as a researcher on its CBRNe programme.