Annemarie van Wezel’s research combines chemistry, toxicology and environmental policy. She has wide-ranging experience as a research scientist in the fields of risk assessment, toxicology and environmental chemistry, as well as environmental policy evaluation. As professor of Environmental Ecology, Van Wezel will focus primarily on chemical processes in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and their impact on living organisms, including on human health. She will study changes in these as a result of the use of new technologies, and study possible mitigating measures.

In her teaching, Van Wezel’s focus will also be on environmental chemistry and risk assessment. She will lecture in the Bachelor’s programmes in Future Planet Studies and in Biology, as well as in the Master’s programmes in Biological Science and in Earth Sciences. 

About Van Wezel

Van Wezel has worked for the KWR Watercycle Research Institute since 2007, as Principal Scientist since 2013 and as Chief Science Officer since May 2018. She was also professor of Water Quality and Health at Utrecht University’s Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development. Before her time at KWR, her work included acting as a policy researcher for the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, a researcher for the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and a project leader for Ecotoxicology at the National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management (currently known as Deltares).

Van Wezel leads the Shale Gas and Water consortium, which is funded by NWO/ALW and water utilities. She supervises projects in the field of micro-plastics, water reuse, effect-based monitoring of emerging chemicals, future development of chemical water quality and effectiveness of water treatment technologies. Previously, she led the ‘Environmental risks of nanochemicals’ programme within the FES-funded NanonextNL. Van Wezel also sits on various scientific advisory bodies, including the Dutch Health Council and the Board for the Authorisation of Plant Protection Products and Biocides, and worked for the EU’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) and Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA). 

Van Wezel is a member of the editorial committee of Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology(Springer). She has published a large number of papers in leading academic journals, including Environmental Science, Water Researchand Environmental Science & Technology.