Marianne van der Sande is professor of Public Health Epidemiology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp where she heads the Departement of Public Health. She is a medical epidemiologist, registered as Consultant Public Health (M&G), and since 2009 also works as part time associate professor at the Julius Centre. Before moving to Antwerp, she was the head of the department of Epidemiology and Surveillance of Infectious Diseases of the Dutch National Centre Infectious Disease Control at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). Previously, she worked as clinician in the Netherlands, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia and then obtained her MPH from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore USA. Next, she worked for nearly 10 years at the MRC Laboratories in The Gambia, first on the epidemiology of non-communicable diseases in sub-Sahara Africa (also the topic of her PhD), and later on the epidemiology of infectious diseases. She has been PI on a range of infectious disease research grants (eg on hepatitis B, hiv, mumps, influenza, hpv) and is currently active in several national and international infectious diseases organisations.