International Scientific Committee 2021

Regien Biesma (BSN, MSc, MSc, PhD) is Associate Professor of Global Maternal and Child Health at the Global Health Unit, Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), Groningen, the Netherlands. She is an epidemiologist and public health specialist with a research focus on estimating and reducing the disparity gap in maternal, neonatal and child health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. She has a particular interest is global nutrition. Her work explores factors during (pre)pregnancy, birth outcomes, early child growth and health and disease later in life. At UMCG, she supervises PhD candidates, coordinates internships in social medicine and leads the advanced research master programme on Health Systems and Prevention. Before joining UMCG in 2018, she spent 11 years at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland where she lectured in Global Public Health and Epidemiology and worked on health systems and policy research in Africa and Asia. She was an invited expert for the World Health Organization expert consultation on maximising positive synergies between health systems and Global Health Initiatives. She is a research fellow at the Aletta School of Public Health, the Netherlands, member of the Working Group on International Nutrition in the Netherlands and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lifecourse Nutrition Center, Agder University, Norway.