Vidi Laureates
| Who | Research | Faculty | Year |
 | Sander Veraverbeke will research 'Fires pushing trees North'. High-latitude regions are warming faster than the rest of the world. This results in more fires and tree species that lag their climatic niche. This project hypothesizes that fires create opportunities for northern tree species to move North, and will analyze effects of these changes on global climate.
| SCIENCE
| 2017
|
 | Brains consist for the most part of salts and water, where the precise distribution of these ingredients is essential. In some brain diseases, this distribution is disrupted, causing white matter to be chronically swollen, with serious consequences. Rogier Min van VUmc - Department of Neurology wants to show how this swelling develops, and what can be done about it.
| VUmc
| 2017
|
 | Jasmin Blanchette wants to develop software to help mathematicians to write correct proofs. He will focus on number theory, a branch of mathematics dedicated primarily to the study of the integers, and collaborate with Dutch mathematicians to ensure the software is usable and works well with computer algebra systems.
| SCIENCE
| 2017
|
 | What is the similarity between the claw of a tiger and an adapted right ventricle in PAH patients? Their shape allows them to withstand immense forces. Frances Handoko-de Man will investigate how right heart failure can be treated by keeping the right ventricle in shape.
| VUmc
| 2017
|
 | What explains socioeconomic inequality in health? Research suggests that 85% of early deaths are due to behavior, genetic predispositions, and socioeconomic circumstances. The project of economist Titus Galama focuses on these alleged three largest contributors, utilizing recent discoveries in genetics, which now make possible the identification of modifiable aspects of environments that protect against genetic risk for unhealthy behaviors.
| SBE
| 2017
|
 | Neil Olver will develop usable algorithms for network optimization. Networks of many kinds—such as communication, traffic, and social networks—have been growing in size and importance. The same mathematical problems about efficiently designing and utilizing networks occur in many different contexts. This project will uncover new algorithms for these problems that are faster, more accurate and more revealing.
| SBE
| 2017
|
 | Diabetic patients have a twice-increased cardiovascular risk. Joline Beulens will identify calcification of the middle vascular layer as a novel cardiovascular risk factor in diabetes patients, leading to stiffening of vessels and the heart, and identify ways to target this risk factor.
| VUmc
| 2017
|
| Nathan Marchant will investigate how the addicted brain loses control. Alcohol addiction is a brain disorder that is accompanied by loss of control over behavior. Marchant and his colleagues want to use modern techniques to trace the brain circuits that are responsible for compulsive alcohol use and the high risk of relapse. To this end, the researchers use a new animal model that describes the persistent urge for alcohol despite the very negative consequences.
| VUmc
| 2017
|
 | Many living creatures are able to survive freezing cold, sometimes up to -70 C! They can do this thanks to antifreeze proteins, but how they work is unknown. The research by Iddo Heller studies the mechanism of action of antifreeze proteins at the nanoscale.
| SCIENCE
| 2016
|
 | Since the outbreak of the debt crisis in 2008, there has been a gap between our infrastructural needs and that which the state and the market can meet. The Infra-Demos project of Dimitris Dalakoglou investigates how society closes this gap by means of new forms of civil participation and technological innovations.
| FSW
| 2016
|
 | Odile van den Heuvel will investigate how disturbed brain development leads to mental illnesses, and vice versa, how chronic disturbed behaviors can change the brain. She will test how magnetic brain stimulation contributes to the training of healthy behavior in chronic patients.
| VUmc
| 2016
|
 | How people can walk stably is largely misunderstood. The hypothesis of Sjoerd Bruijn's project is that stable walking only requires active control in specific parts of the walking cycle. In order to investigate this, methods will be developed that can answer the question of how our brain exercises this control.
| FGB
| 2016
|
 | Judith Bosmans will investigate how society can spend money for healthcare as well as possible. In order to answer this question, policy makers need information about the cost-effectiveness of care in daily practice. This project will develop and evaluate advanced methods that are necessary for this.
| SCIENCE
| 2016
|
 | Stagnating weather in the summer can cause great harm to society. The research of Dim Coumou improves our understanding of the underlying processes of such extremes, including the role of climate change, using machine learning methods and the most high-quality climate models.
| SCIENCE
| 2016
|
 | Christian Burgers conducts research into Political satire, which is often controversial when it is used to attack politicians. He wants to map out how, in different media, language use in satire differs from 'regular' genres such as news, and how these differences in media and language use direct public perception of the subject in question.
| FSW
| 2016
|
 | Martijn van den Assem studies how people make decisions when there is a lot of money at stake. He will use game shows to analyse economic behaviour. | SBE
| 2015 |
 | Reinier Boon studies the ageing of the heart, the main risk factor for cardiovascular disease. He will study how so-called non-coding RNA (also known as ‘Junk’ RNA) contributes to heart ageing. | VUmc | 2015 |
 | Sander Dahmen studies diophantine equations, these are equations whose coefficients and unknowns must be integers. They currently play a key role in modern theories of arithmetic and algebraic geometry. | SCIENCE
| 2015 |
 | Michel van den Oever studies alcohol relapse which is often triggered by environmental factors that act as a reminder of its pleasant effects. He will use new advanced techniques to study how an alcohol memory is recorded by small populations of nerve cells in the brain. | SCIENCE
| 2015 |
 | Philip Ward studies the simultaneous riverine and ocean flooding (in Thailand in 2011, for example) that can have a devastating impact on people living in deltas and estuaries. | SCIENCE
| 2015 |
 | The research of Wouter Botzen will develop insurances that provide an affordable and broad coverage of flood damage and also give stimuli to policyholders to reduce risks. An integrated flood risk and insurance model will evaluate different types of solutions for flood insurances. Experiments and questionnaire studies will investigate the preparation behaviour of individuals with respect to floods and how insurance policies can guide this behaviour. | SCIENCE
| 2014 |
 | Are liberal democracies good at producing knowledge? Jeroen de Ridder will determine how free and open debate between different standpoints should ideally lead to knowledge. He will subsequently investigate whether this ideal holds if citizens' considerable differences in opinion and limited rational ability are taken into account. | FGW
| 2014 |
 | A child's first step is small but it is a large jump in his or her development. Nadia Dominici investigates the spontaneous changes in brain and muscle activity during the development of walking skills. The results will be directly applied in the rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy. | FGB | 2014 |
 | In our everyday movements we match our behaviour to what our body is capable of. In this project it will be investigated whether elderly people fall more often because they either overestimate or underestimate themselves. A wrong estimation could lead to a high risk of falling or to inactivity. | FGB | 2013 |
 | The Ancient Persian Empire (550-330 BC) was the first world empire with many cultures and it extended from Greece to modern-day Afghanistan. Studying the tax system of this empire will help us to explain its stability. | FGW
| 2013 |
 | Inexpensive and high-performance solar devices that convert light into electricity efficiently are of crucial importance for society. Quantum dot solar cells are cheap, flexible and reliable devices that are expected to play a major role in future solar technologies. In this project, my group will develop and apply versatile computational tools to speed-up the development of this emerging technology. | SCIENCE
| 2013 |
 | Ed Eringa investigates how an accumulation of fat around blood vessels contribute to the development of diabetes and associated vascular diseases. | VUmc | 2012 |
 | Edith Houben investigates how important virulence factors are transported over its unique cell wall. | VUmc | 2012 |
 | To aid in the necessary transition to sustainable resources like wood, Rosa Bulo develops computer programs to simulate the complex chemistry involved. | SCIENCE
| 2012 |
 | Daan Geerke develops computational methods to predict drug metabolism by Cytochrome P450 enzymes, which often plays an important role in possible side-effects or failure of drugs and drug candidates. | SCIENCE
| 2012 |
 | Chris Slootweg investigates if a combination of inexpensive elements , like nitrogen and aluminum, can be used as a catalysts in the chemical industry. | SCIENCE
| 2012 |
 | The research of Wouter Roos focuses on cellular and (supra)molecular biophysics. Techniques he uses include advanced light and touch microscopy (AFM) approaches. | SCIENCE
| 2012 |
 | Klaudia Kuiper develops a new accurate time scale to test if the deposition of coals during the Paleosene can be controlled by astronomical climate forcing. | SCIENCE
| 2012 |
 | To advance our understanding of the biological etiology of behavior, Sophie van der Sluis will develop new statistical methods for genetics research that accommodate the complex and dynamic nature of behavior. | SCIENCE
| 2012 |
 | A loss in neuronal connectivity is thought to underlie brain disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. Joris de Wit studies how adhesion molecules regulate the stability of neuronal connections, in order to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of these disorders. | VUmc | 2011 |
 | Market economy is full of obstacles to transactions. Makoto Watanabe aims to find out what economic agents can and should do to mitigate such a difficulty. He also analyzes how prices can guide us to understand how well markets can work. | SBE
| 2011 |
 | Frank Bruggeman studies how spontaneous changes in the molecular make-up of individual bacteria contribute to microbial survival strategies in dynamic environments. | SCIENCE
| 2011 |
 | Martijn Huisman will identify the characteristics of individuals who have aged successfully, despite having lived with exceptional socioeconomic adversity. | VUmc/
FSS | 2011 |
 | Coen Ottenheijm investigates the role of the giant protein nebulin in normal and in diseased muscle. | VUmc | 2011 |
 | The research of Philipp Pattberg focuses on the assessing and reforming the current Architecture of Global Environmental Governance. | SCIENCE
| 2011 |
 | Barbara Vis studies high-risk politics, focusing particularly on why some political actors take high electoral risks but others do not. | FSS | 2011 |
 | Vivi Heine focuses on the development of a stem cell therapy for children with a brain white matter disorder. | VUmc | 2011 |
 | Philip Verhagen uses spatial dynamical modelling to reconstruct and understand the development of the cultural landscape in the Dutch part of the Roman limes. | FGW
| 2011 |
 | Jeroen Koelemeij is developing the building blocks for 'SuperGPS' through optical telecom networks. | SCIENCE
| 2011 |
 | Faustina Doufikar-Aerts carries out a multilingual, diachronic, interdisciplinary study of the literary and artistic traditions concerning Alexander the Great in the Islamic world. | FRT | 2010 |
 | Huub Maas investigates mechanical interactions between muscles, how this is used by the central nervous system, and how this affects the control of movement. | FGB | 2010 |
 | Thomas Wurdinger investigates how brain tumors manipulate their micro-environment by secreting genetic messages. | VUmc | 2010 |
 | Steven Knoop investigates the fundamental properties of very large and very weakly bound trimers in a mixture of helium and rubidium atoms. | SCIENCE
| 2010 |
 | The recent financial crisis demonstrates that markets do not always run smoothly. Where did it go wrong? Albert Menkveld reconstructs trading in 2007 and 2008 to find answers. | SBE
| 2010 |
 | Toby Kiers investigates how cooperation evolves and is maintained between plants and their symbiotic bacterial and fungal partners. | SCIENCE
| 2010 |
 | Jolanda van der Velden investigates how mutations in genes which encode cardiac proteins lead to the development of heart failure. | VUmc | 2010 |
 | Jenny van der Steen studies effects of treatment of pneumonia in patients with dementia. | VUmc | 2010 |
 | Hilde Bras investigated the effect of family relations and practices on the fertility decline in Europe between 1850 and 2010 during her stay at VU Amsterdam. | FSS | 2010 |
 | Elies van Sliedregt aims to undertake systematic and comparative research into international criminal law as applied by national courts, into whether, and to what extent, national courts adopt and should adopt international standards and liability theories. | LAW | 2009 |
 | Gareth Davies examines the interaction between international trade, the environment and human rights, and national sovereignty | LAW | 2009 |
 | Paola Gori-Giorgi develops new theoretical and computational methods to calculate how electrons arrange in molecules and solids. These methods are at the heart of predictive chemistry and material science. | SCIENCE
| 2009 |
 | Didier Roche aims at assessing the risk of (future) abrupt climate changes in a changing climate.
| SCIENCE
| 2009 |
 | Federico Camia examines mathematical models of physical systems in which randomness and self-similarity play a crucial role. | SCIENCE
| 2009 |
 | Raoul Frese investigates the photosynthetic process on a nanometer scale and by reverse engineering in biological suncells. | SCIENCE
| 2009 |
 | Juliette Legler investigates the development and validation of in vitro and in vivo bioassays to determine the toxicological effects of low doses of environmental chemicals. | SCIENCE
| 2009 |
 | Martijn Meeter investigates how a new stimulus can have a big impact on the brain, by generating more neural activity then a known stimuli, by tracking the attention and by getting better stored in memory. | FGB | 2009 |
 | Rhiannon Meredith examines how abnormal synapses in mental retardation affect the function of both single synapses and neuronal networks in the brain. | SCIENCE
| 2009 |
 | Remus Dame conducted research on the structure of chromatin and the interaction between chromatin structure and genetic activity in bacteria and archaea. | SCIENCE
| 2008 |
 | Anton Vonk Noordegraaf investigates the cause of pulmonary hypertension, which leads to an increase in blood pressure in the pulmonary artery and, as a result, heart failure. | VUmc | 2008 |
 | Pol van Lier studies how the genetic vulnerability of children who display anti-social behaviour coincides with problematic environmental factors. | FGB | 2008 |
 | Rick Bethlem is creating a molecule fountain in which molecules are slowed down, cooled and launched 10-50 cm before they fall back again as a result of gravity. | SCIENCE
| 2007 |
 | Harry van Zanten developed a mathematical theory that makes it possible to compare the performance of different methods in modern statistical practices during his stay at VU Amsterdam. | SCIENCE
| 2007 |
 | Lydia Krabbendam examines the generation of trust and, conversely, paranoia, in interpersonal relationships. | FGB | 2007 |
 | Marjolein van Egmond conducts research on the role played by immunoglobulin A and its specific receptor in mucosal immunity. | VUmc | 2007 |
 | Huib Mansvelder investigates which nicotine receptors and cellular processes are involved in the stimulation by nicotine of the intellect of neuro-psychiatric patients. | SCIENCE
| 2006 |
 | Wim van Westrenen is conducting research into the origins and evolution of the moon. | SCIENCE
| 2006 |
 | Christian Olivers examines through analysis of eye movements and MRI measurements whether visual attention, short-term memory and consciousness work according to the same rules. | FGB | 2006 |
 | Catrin Finkenauer investigates how well people understand and know their partner, and whether this understanding matters for their relationship with him or her. | FGB
| 2005 |
 | Danielle Posthuma is conceiving a new method whereby the combination of genes and environment in the formation of human characteristics can be demonstrated. | FGB | 2005 |
 | Sander Nieuwenhuis conducted research on the effect of noradrenalin, a substance that hastens the processing of information, on human cognition during his stay at VU Amsterdam. | FGB | 2005 |
 | Brenda Penninx examines whether people with depression or anxiety disorders are more susceptible to cardiovascular disease and what the role of the body’s two stress systems is in this. | VUmc | 2005 |
 | Ronald Boellaard is developing methods to accurately measure changes in or disruptions to chemical interactions between brain cells in cases of brain or psychiatric disorders. | VUmc | 2005 |
 | Andreas Daffertshofer examines how the interaction between the brain and muscles ensure that people are able to move in a rhythmical fashion. | FGB | 2004 |
 | Davide Iannuzzi is developing a new technology in the field of scale-model devices: the ‘fiber-top’ technology. | SCIENCE
| 2004 |
 | Martine Smit is researching the role of viral receptor proteins in relation to vascular conditions. | SCIENCE
| 2004 |
 | Jos van Ommeren conducts research on the effects of corporate behaviour on commuter traffic. | SBE
| 2004 |
 | Pieter Gautier examines whether people in cities who are single are more successful at finding a suitable partner and a job. | SBE
| 2004 |
 | Manon van der Heijden conducted research on the process in the Middle Ages whereby the link between citizens and cities were weakened as a result of the growth of public services in the cities during her stay at VU Amsterdam. | FGW
| 2004 |
 | Gajja Salomons is looking for a way of treating a new genetic defect that causes a mental disability. | VUmc | 2004 |
 | Tanja de Gruijl is designing genetically modified cold viruses that infect dendritic cells, allowing the alarm function of the immune system in cancer patients to be restored. | VUmc | 2004 |
 | Jacintha Ellers is attempting to demonstrate, on the basis of the saltatory evolution of the springtail, how species evolve and diverge. | SCIENCE
| 2003 |
 | John Kennis examines how proteins absorb, use and pass on information by administering light pulses. | SCIENCE
| 2003 |
 | Helga de Vries examines how some cells of the immune system are able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and the resultant changes to vessels. | VUmc | 2003 |
 | Joke den Haan examines how a special immune cell, dendritic cell, incites white blood cells to be aggressive or tolerant. | VUmc | 2003 |
 | Theo Geijtenbeek searched for new weapons in the fight against infections by making antibodies that block the interaction between viruses with specific immune cells during his stay at VU Amsterdam. | VUmc | 2003 |
 | Ernst-Otto Onnasch examined the works of Immanuel Kant in order to map 'the system of reason' that was used by him during his stay at VU Amsterdam. | FGW
| 2003 |
 | Rob van der Vorst is researching dynamical systems and partial differential equations with a topological and geometrical method in order to gain an insight into the structure of these systems. | SCIENCE
| 2002 |
 | Joyeeta Gupta examined the change in transparency in relation to environmental issues in an international context. | SCIENCE
| 2002 |
 | Eli Brenner examines how people combine different types of visual information about the same feature. | FGB
| 2002 |
 | Jeroen Smeets examines how we combine different types of information when making deliberate movements. | FGB | 2002 |
 | Erwin Peterman is measuring the performance of individual molecular motor proteins that set cell processes in motion. | SCIENCE
| 2002 |
 | Marloes Groot is studying two enzymes that become active through light and as a result can be portrayed accurately, to the femtosecond. | SCIENCE
| 2002 |