CV Bert Brunekreef, PhD. June 2021
Emeritus Professor of Environmental Epidemiology
Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University
Bert Brunekreef was born on March 10, 1953 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Academic education in Environmental Sciences at the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands, 1971-1979.
From 1979-2000, he has been employed by the Department of Environmental Health of the Wageningen University, first as assistant professor, since 1986 as associate professor, and since 1993 as full Professor.
In 1985, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Environmental Epidemiology from the University of Wageningen.
In 1986/1987, he spent the academic year at the Harvard School of Public Health, studying health effects of air pollution episodes, and of living in damp homes.
In 1995, he served as the main organizer of the annual ISEE/ISEA conference which was held in the Netherlands that year. In 1998, he was chosen to be president of the ISEE for the years 2000 and 2001. In 2019, he co-chaired the 31st annual ISEE meeting in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Since the early 1990s, prof. Brunekreef has coordinated five EU funded studies (PEACE, TRAPCA, AIRALLERG, AIRNET and ESCAPE) in the field of air pollution, allergy and health. He is or has been partner in many other international collaborative studies. He has also been the PI on three studies funded by the US Health Effects Institute. The last one is ELAPSE (Effects of Low-level Air Pollution: a Study in Europe). This is one of three studies conducted in Europe, the USA and Canada, focused on health effects of air pollution below current standards and guidelines.
In 2000, his Wageningen Department was moved to Utrecht University where it merged with the existing RITOX Institute to create the ‘Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS)’. In 2005 IRAS absorbed the Veterinary Public Health Department, and prof. Brunekreef was Director of IRAS from January 1, 2005 until mid 2017.
Prof. Brunekreef is Emeritus (since July 2019) Professor of Environmental Epidemiology in both the Faculties of Veterinary Medicine, and the Faculty of Medicine at the Utrecht University.
On several occasions, Bert Brunekreef served as advisor on national and international panels in the field of environmental health, including the Dutch National Health Council, European Community, Health Canada, WHO, the Health Effects Institute and the US EPA.
Bert Brunekreef is co-author of more than 600 peer reviewed journal articles in the field of environmental epidemiology and exposure assessment. He is currently Editor in Chief of Environmental Epidemiology.
He received the ISEE John Goldsmith award (2007), the European Lung Foundation Award (2007), an honorary doctorate of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium (2008), the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences (2008), and an Academy Professorship of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (2009) to which he also was elected to become a member in 2009. In 1991 he was elected Fellow of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ), in 2014 he was elected fellow of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and in 2021 fellow of the ISEE. In 2020, he was appointed honorary member of the Dutch Health Council for his lifetime service to the council.
In 2011 he was awarded a royal distinction (Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion) for his services to science and society.