Roeland Merks

Roeland Merks is a senior researcher at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), the Dutch national researcher for mathematics and computer science in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he coordinates the institute’s research in the Life Sciences. He also holds a part-time position as full professor in Multiscale Mathematical Biology at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Merks received his Master of Science degree in Biology from Utrecht University, The Netherlands in 1997. After a brief research stay at Prof. Kaneko’s lab in Tokyo University, Japan in 1998 he pursued graduate studies in Computational Science from 1999 to 2003 the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He earned his PhD for his studies with Dr. Jaap Kaandorp, Dr. Alfons Hoekstra, and Prof. Peter Sloot on the simulation of branching morphogenesis of corals. He went on to study the mechanisms of collective cell behavior during angiogenesis with Prof. James Glazier from Indiana University, Bloomington, and then moved to the VIB Dept. Plant Systems Biology in Ghent, Belgium to work on cell-based modeling of leaf morphogenesis with Dr. Gerrit Beemster and to set up his own group on plant modeling. In 2008 he moved to CWI, the Dutch national research center of mathematics and computer science, where he set up the biomodeling group of the Netherlands Consortium for Systems Biology. Merks current research focuses on modeling angiogenesis, plant development, and mechanobiology.