Expertise
Petra Verhoef joined the Rathenau Instituut in February 2018. She is one of the coordinators. She and her team work on different subjects: digitisation of health data, healthcare technologies, reproductive technology, genetic modification of humans, crops and animals, regenerative medicine, sustainable food production and handling of risks for health and environment in research and innovation.
Education and career
Petra is an epidemiologist. She studied Human Nutrition at Wageningen University and was awarded a doctorate for her research on the role of B-vitamins in the occurrence of cardiovascular disease. As a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston she studied genetic determinants of cardiovascular disease. Then she worked 8 years as project leader ‘nutrition and ageing disease’ at the Top Institute Food & Nutrition in Wageningen. Subsequently she worked almost 12 years at the R&D-department Nutrition and Health of Unilever in positions of team leader, open innovation manager and project leader ‘metabolic health’.
Other activities
- Municipal councillor for the PvdA in Lansingerland.