Iris van ‘t Erve, PhD

Dr. Iris van ’t Erve is a molecular biologist and postdoctoral fellow in the Diehn lab at the School of Medicine. She focuses on wet-lab and computational approaches for liquid biopsies: blood-based tests that detect and monitor cancer, enabling personalized treatment without invasive tumor biopsies. She earned two M.S. degrees (both Cum Laude) from Wageningen University and a Ph.D. from the Netherlands Cancer Institute. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, has sparked commercial spin-offs, and has secured competitive funding, including the Dutch Research Council Rubicon Fellowship. In 2023, she was named one of twenty future female science leaders by the Falling Walls Foundation. Combining research with her knack for teaching (supported by two teaching certificates) and mentorship, Dr. van ‘t Erve leverages her expertise in her role as a grant coach for the Grant Writing Academy, guiding international graduate students and postdocs to success in their grant writing endeavors. Since 2023, she is teaching the ERC and MSCA grant courses as well as general workshops on non-US grant writing. In her free time, she enjoys exploring nature with her toddler.