Prof. de Vet is a full professor specializing in behavior change, health, and the living environment at Wageningen University & Research. Her work is embedded within the Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles and Urban Economics chair groups.
Her research on behavior change for personal, public, and planetary health sits at the intersection of health, life and medical sciences, and social and behavioral sciences. She is particularly interested in complex systemic health problems involving multiple actors and factors, such as the climate-health nexus, protein transition, antibiotic resistance, obesity, foodborne and infectious diseases, the microbiome, and health inequality.
Prof. de Vet seeks to understand how behaviors arise in specific social, economic, and physical environments (so-called socio-ecological levels). These behavioral insights inform the design, evaluation, and implementation of interventions and policies aimed at changing individuals, environments, and broader systems.
She has led various externally funded research projects on the interconnections between behavior, health, and environment, including the ZonMW-funded Health Improvement through Nudging Techniques program (HINTS) and a personal VIDI grant on implicit social norms in food environments. She is currently the project leader for the NWO-funded program “Tipping the Balance for Dietary Change,” which explores the environmental, behavioral, and societal aftereffects of food environment interventions.
Prof. de Vet also leads a ZonMW-funded program on implementing interventions in long-term care to prevent antimicrobial resistance and serves as work package leader for an NWO KIC microbiome project investigating societal acceptance of sustainable crop protection technology. She was part of the leadership team for the protein transition strategic theme at WUR.
Prof. de Vet holds a PhD in health sciences and has worked in public health, psychology, communication science, and the humanities. For example, as chair of Consumption and Healthy Lifestyles and as dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at University College Tilburg, she led interdisciplinary research and educational programs.
She serves in various advisory roles in policy and practice, including as a member of the National Health Council of the Netherlands (the main scientific advisory body to the Dutch government and parliament) and as a member of the behavioral sciences technical advisory group to the World Health Organization. She is also on the program council for CLICKNL, the top sector for creative industries, and serves on various ZonMW committees (e.g., infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance; lifestyle medicine).
At AMS, Prof. de Vet will focus on the interconnections between behavioral science, public health, and urban living environments. Key questions include: How can urban living environments be designed to contribute to happy and healthy cities and communities? How do developments in urban living environments (e.g., heat, greening, mobility) influence the health and well-being of citizens, and how do behavioral responses hinder or accelerate these outcomes (e.g., through physical activity, diet, or health-protective behaviors)?