Meike Bartels (1973) is University Research Chair Professor in Genetics and Wellbeing at the Department of Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. After an internship at the Queensland institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, she graduated in Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit. Her master degree is in Physiological Psychology, with special focus on Behavior Genetics. She obtained her PhD degree in 2003 under supervision of Prof. Dorret Boomsma. During the last months of her PhD, she worked at the Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavior Genetics, Richmond, VA, USA together with Prof. Edwin van den Oord. In 2014 she was appointed as full professor under the competitive and honorary University Research Chair program of the Vrije Universiteit. She published over 160 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including the first molecular genetic evidence for well-being in PNAS and the first genomic variant for well-being in Nature Genetics. Over the course of her PhD, she increasingly realized that the majority of individuals remain free of psychopathology throughout their life. Ever since she broadened focus and became interested in well-being. She conducts and supervises several research projects to gain sight into the underlying sources of variation on Well-being. She envisions that with a focus on positive aspects the public health system will be broadened, so that the aim will no longer be to only help to heal the ill but also to increase overall happiness.
Sessions
11/02/2017
11.05 - 11.25
Al Safinah Ballroom Theatre
How much of our happiness is predetermined by our genes? Are we born with a tendency to be more miserable than others? Prof. Meike Bartels dedicated a large chapter of her career to researching the effect genetics have on our behavior and well-being. In this session, Prof. Bartels will share some of her latest and insightful findings.