Marianne Joels - Biography#

Marian Joels' research focuses on the effects of stress on brain function & behavior in health and disease, in animal models and humans. She uses technologies ranging from patch clamp physiology in vitro to fMRI in patient cohorts.

Marian Joels studied Biology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA; cum laude). She obtained her PhD degree at Utrecht University (1984); for her thesis she was awarded the Sandoz Research Prize. She carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Texas in Galveston (1986) and at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (1987). In 1986 she received a prestigious Pioneer grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO, allowing to start her own lab at the UvA, first as associate professor and since 1997 as full professor.

In 2009 she was appointed as director of the Rudolf Magnus Institute in Utrecht, responsible for all research (and education) related to the brain, including e.g. psychiatry, neurology, neurosurgery and basic neuroscience. Her work has been supported by several large personal grants from NWO, including a Gravitation Grant, a 10-years' personal grant for consortia of groundbreaking researchers.

In 2016 she was appointed as Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Groningen and board-member of the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), the second largest academic hospital in The Netherlands. In this role she was responsible for all medical education and research (>4000 peer-reviewed papers/yr and ~1500 PhD students) of the UMCG.

Marian Joels is among the most-cited neuroscientists in The Netherland and internationally. She received several prizes, including the European Medal of the British Endocrine Society and a lifetime achievement award of the ISPNE. She is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 2002) and served as President of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies FENS (2012-2014) which represents >20,000 neuroscientists from Europe.