Professor Emely de Vet

Emely de Vet is full professor and dean of University College Tilburg in the Netherlands. In addition, she holds a part-time faculty position at the Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles group at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. Prof. de Vet studies behaviour change for personal, public, and planetary health. Her work addresses complex systemic health problems where many different actors and factors interact (climate-health nexus, protein transition, antimicrobial resistance, obesity, foodborne and infectious diseases, microbiome, health inequality). She seeks to understand how behaviours arise in certain social, economic, and physical contexts (so-called socio-ecological levels). These behavioural insights are used to design, evaluate, and implement interventions and policies, which are directed at change in individuals, environments, and wider systems. Key interests include digital technology to facilitate interventions and research methods to study behaviours in context. Food is a priority in her work. Prof. de Vet serves various advisory roles in policy and practice to implement behavioural insights for better health in the Netherlands, for instance as member of the National Health Council (the main scientific advisory body to Dutch government and parliament).