Julia van Weert

Prof. Dr. Julia van Weert is a Professor of Health Communication and head of the Department of Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam. She is the founding director of the Amsterdam Center for Health Communication (ACHC), co-lead Health of the National Gravitation Program AlgoSoc (Public Values in the Algorithmic Society), co-lead of the ELSA Lab "AI for Health Equity", and board member of the UvA’s Research Priority Urban Mental Health. 

Professor Van Weert is a leading person in the health communication field in Europe and beyond. She is elected a Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA). Her research and that of others she supervised received many prestigious awards, including the Jozien Bensing Award, the Lewis Donohew Outstanding Health Communication Scholar Award, the ZonMw Parel (Pearl Award), and >40 other awards. Van Weert has ~250 publications and a large (inter)national network. She frequently appears in public debates and (inter)national news media and often gives lectures for professionals or public audiences. 

At its core, her theory-driven and grant-funded research unearths the underlying mechanisms of online information processing and how digital (AI-based) technologies impact health outcomes and well-being.  She is a widely recognized scholar on digital theory- and evidence-based health information interventions for underprivileged and high-risk, vulnerable groups (e.g. low health literacy, older patients, and migrants). She has crafted a distinctive academic signature on digital health communication and is involved in projects such as the NWO Data2Person project SNOWDROP and the ZonMw-funded project ADFICE_IT (using prediction models in clinical decision support systems), and the EU projects MentalHealth4all (digital mental health platform for migrants) and Label2Enable (trusted EU mHealth label for apps). 

At the WiDS Maastricht Conference on Thursday 7 March 2024, Prof. Van Weert will hold the second Keynote talk, entitled "Automated or Human Decision Making in Healthcare?"