Anja Huizink is professor of developmental psychopathology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, specialising in biopsychological influences on mental health. 

In February 2026, she will assume the Queen Silvia Professorship in Global Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden – with a specific focus on mental health. Huizink earned her PhD in child psychiatry from Utrecht University in 2000, researching prenatal stress and infant development. Following a postdoc in disaster research at VU Medical Center, she joined Erasmus Medical Center (Rotterdam) as assistant (2003) and associate professor (2007), studying prenatal exposures such as maternal substance use. 

During this period, her research expanded to biopsychological risk factors for adolescent substance use and behavioral addiction, supported by multiple grants. In 2009, she was appointed professor at Radboud University Nijmegen on a special chair in youth addiction. She became full professor in 2012 at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. 

Her current work focuses on stress as a key mechanism underlying perinatal and adolescent mental health. Since 2012, Huizink has also led intervention research, conducting randomized controlled trials in various countries, including in the Global South, to improve mental health in the perinatal period and in adolescence.

Photo: Johan Wingborg