Dr. Eline Mertens

Faculty
Job title Assistant Professor
Phone number :  +31346291229

Biography

Eline Mertens PhD is an assistant professor at the Center for Marketing & Supply Chain Management.

Her research focuses on improving personalized care and interventions for (older) adults. By focusing on subjective health experiences, a valuable dimension is added to the decision-making process in healthcare, which looks beyond objective health indicators alone. 

Mertens' research focuses on the use of the Subjective Health Perception (SHP) model, with additional attention to vulnerability, vitality, and quality of life. This approach leads to better tailored care. What energizes her is the combination of scientific depth and social relevance, and the opportunity to translate academic research into tangible impact. She is proud of the space she is given to develop independent research projects within an interdisciplinary team. 

Mertens obtained her PhD in neuroscience at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2025), within the Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR), with a thesis entitled ‘Human pyramidal neurons at the center of brain diversity’. In this research, she studied the structural and functional properties of brain cells in surgically obtained (living) human brain tissue. This resulted in a unique dataset, which she used to reveal differences between brain areas at the level of individual cells. Her work was characterized by the analysis of complex laboratory data, with a strong emphasis on methodological substantiation and statistical validation. After obtaining her PhD, she consciously chose a direction in which she could apply her analytical skills to socially relevant issues. She obtained her bachelor's degree in Health & Life Sciences and her research master's degree in Neurosciences, both from VU University Amsterdam, in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

Mertens' personal mission is to generate knowledge that directly contributes to better care and health for people. At Nyenrode, she embodies the core values by conducting socially relevant research and by taking responsibility for a transparent and methodologically sound approach. By collaborating with healthcare institutions and partners in the field, she wants to contribute to applications that have a real clinical impact. She wants to use science as a means to bring practice and people closer together.

International activities

Mertens conducted her doctoral research in collaboration with the Allen Institute for Brain Science (Seattle, United States), where she was involved in generating gene expression data for the Human Brain Project. She also worked closely with the Blue Brain Project at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland), where she provided data to support the modeling of the human brain. She also collaborated with researchers in Italy and Finland, where her data formed the basis for computer models and joint publications. She presented her research at international conferences in Amsterdam (Netherlands), Geneva (Switzerland), and Budapest (Hungary), among other places.

Interests

Mertens' greatest hobby is traveling to faraway places, where she actively seeks adventure and nature. She also enjoys strength training and Pilates. She meditates daily and reads with interest about mental health and the brain, but also enjoys good fiction. She draws energy from sharp, substantive discussions and is always looking for new insights and knowledge.

Most relevant publications

 

Information

Center
Marketing & Supply Chain Management