Vera van Noort appointed “Van der Klaauw professor”
Vera van Noort, professor in Computational Systems Biology at the KU Leuven (Belgium), is appointed holder of the rotating chair “Van der Klaauw Professor” for the year 2015-2016 at the Institute of Biology. Holders of the chair bring inspiring research and teaching in theoretical biology to the University. The IBL is delighted to welcome Van Noort and her excellent expertise in bioinformatics.
Vera van Noort earned her MSc in Biology with specialization in Bioinformatics from Utrecht University in 2002. Her thesis work focused around biological sequence analysis. After her MSc, Van Noort did research on comparative genomics of eukaryotes at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She obtained her PhD cum laude in 2007 and received an NWO Rubicon fellowship at the EMBL, Germany. After a few years as a postdoctoral fellow, she was appointed as Staff Scientist. In October 2013, Van Noort started her own group within the Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics at the KU Leuven. Her group is interested in understanding biological systems as a whole. Van Noort has published over 35 articles in major scientific journals and has a lot of experience in teaching bioinformatics and genomics.
As part of the chair “Van der Klaauw professor”, Van Noort will provide lectures about her expertise in bioinformatics and create new scientific collaborations. In 2016, a symposium about Bioinformatics will be organized. Previously the rotating chair was taken by Yale Biologist, professor G.P. Wagner.
About “Van der Klaauw”
The rotating chair “Van der Klaauw Professor” is named after Van der Klaauw who was professor of Descriptive Zoology and director of the Zoological Laboratory in Leiden during 1934–1959. Several lines of research were initiated and stimulated during his directorate: histology, ethology, ecology and theoretical biology. His main own work was in animal morphology, but he made significant contributions to other fields, in particular to that of theoretical biology. Van der Klaauw developed new concepts on functional morphology, based upon a holistic approach.
Link
Personal page Vera van Noort.