M.L. (Miriam) Haaksma, PhD

I am an Epidemiologist with expertise in longitudinal modeling of trajectories of health and disease and clinical prediction modeling. After obtaining my MSc degree in Nutrition & Health from Wageningen University & Research, I obtained by PhD degree with honors in 2019.
My research mainly focusses on dementia progression. However, my broad ambition to improve health and healthcare has resulted in my involvement in studies on a myriad of relevant topics in the field of elderly care, including studies on eHealth in geriatric rehabilitation and self-management for people with Korsakoff syndrome.
In summary, my work focusses on the quality of life of residents in long-term care. Through solving practical issues, we aim to improve quality of care. Although I am primarily a quantitative researcher, I believe a combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods is often key to understanding and solving clinical problems.

During my PhD at the department of Geriatrics of Radboudumc I received several awards, such as the Christine Mohrmann stipend for promising female researchers, the Junior Investigator Award from the International College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology, and the Science Prize of the Dutch Society of Clinical Geriatrics (NVKG). I also obtained several research and travel grants, which enabled me to visit Johns Hopkins University (US) and Karolinska Institutet (SE) to expand my knowledge and build valuable collaborations.

In 2021, I received a personal grant from the Leiden Empowerment Fund to continue the EU-COGER study; a multicenter study on geriatric rehabilitation after COVID-19 infection. As the coordinator of this study I recruited >700 post-COVID patients from 10 European countries within 1 year.

Since 2022 I secured over 300,000 euros as a (co-)applicant on research grants.

I am currently affiliated with the Lifecourse Epidemiology and Geroscience research theme of the LUMC.