Jordy is a PhD researcher at the Department of Environmental Biology of CML, studying the impact of climate change on mosquitoes and vector-borne disease risk.

More information about Jordy van der Beek

Professional experience

Jordy graduated as a MSc in Biology, with a specialization in Biodiversity and Sustainability, in 2022. His first MSc research project focused at small scale distribution patterns of mosquitoes in a Dutch wetland to test the impact of fragmented habitats on mosquito occurrences. A second research project investigated sampling bias in big datasets, using a multi-year database of opportunistic occurrence records of hoverflies, sampled by both experts and citizen scientists. This research focused on the possible implications that biased data can have while analysing spatial and temporal trends.

During and after his study, Jordy worked as freelance fieldwork assistant for many different research projects. After his graduation, he started at Naturalis Biodiversity Center coordinating the Dutch fieldwork for an EU-funded project to establish a European-wide pollinator monitoring network, as well as working on mosquito ecology and taxonomy related research projects. The latter activities included a mosquito biodiversity inventory that was executed on all of the Dutch Caribbean Islands (in 2018 and 2022) in collaboration with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).

Jordy started as a PhD researcher at the Department of Environmental Biology of CML in February 2023.

Research topic

Jordy is a PhD researcher in the Frontrunner project: “Climate change and vector-borne virus outbreaks” from the Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Center. The project will investigate if climate-related habitat changes relate to ideal mosquito habitat and increase vector-borne disease risk. The climate-related habitat changes that are being investigated within this project include groundwater salinization, salt intrusion in surface water and the delta, land-use modifications and surface-water temperatures.

Publications