Prof. dr. Aartjan Beekman, MD, PhD

Prof. dr. Aartjan T.F. Beekman is psychiatrist and head of the department of psychiatry at Amsterdam UMC (location VUmc). He is also member of the board of directors of GGZ inGeest, a specialised mental health institution closely allied with Amsterdam UMC, and program leader of the Mental Health program of the Amsterdam Public Health research institute.

Aartjan Beekman studied Medicine at the VU University Amsterdam and finished his Psychiatry specialty training in 1991. He did specialty rotations on acute and emergency psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry during his training. He completed his PhD (cum laude) in 1996 with a thesis titled “Depression in later life: studies in the community” and was also registered as epidemiologist B while doing his PhD. During this time his clinical work focused on acute and emergency psychiatry. He then went on as deputy (5 years) and director (5 years) of the residency programme for psychiatry at VUmc/GGZ inGeest.
In 2003 he was awarded a chair in psychiatric epidemiology at VUmc and in 2007 he became head of the department of psychiatry VUmc and member of the board for GGZ inGeest. Over the years he fulfilled many positions in the Netherlands Psychiatric Association (NVvP) serving as its president between 2012 and 2016. He has (co)authored over 600 publications and supervised more than 60 succesful PhD’s.