Prof. Witte Hoogendijk, MD, PhD, (1960) is Head of Department of Psychiatry at the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam and Professor of Psychiatry. He is also Chairman of the Professional Interest Committee of the Dutch Association for Psychiatry and member of the National Research Council committee on the proper use of medication.
He is the author of numerous International scientific articles on psychiatry, the neurobiology of mood disorders and phototherapy.
Witte Hoogendijk obtained his medical degree at the AMC, University of Amsterdam (1989). From 1989-1998, he was the first that was appointed by the National Research Counsil to combine a medical specialty in psychiatry, including one year of Neurology at UMC Utrecht (1995), with his research training (PhD project: "Post-mortem changes in depression", 1998) at the VU University Medical Center (VUmc) in Amsterdam.
In 1999 he was awarded the two-yearly Ramaermedaille for Psychiatric research in the Netherlands by the Dutch Society for Psychiatry and also the two-yearly young researcher’s medal by the Interdisciplinary Society for Biological Psychiatry. The same year he was appointed as associate professor in Biological Psychiatry at the VUmc.
In 2001 he was granted by the National Research Council as Clinical Research Fellow at the VUmc, followed by his appointment as member of the Health Council of the Netherlands by her Majesty the Queen (2002-2014). In 2003 he was appointed as full professor in Biological Psychiatry at both the faculty of Medicine, department of Psychiatry, and the faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, department of Molecular Neurobiology, in order to stimulate translational research collaborations.
From 2003-2008 he was co-director of the centre for neurogenomics and cognitive research (CNCR) and from 2003-2010 he was member of the board of the Netherlands study on depression and anxiety (NESDA). From 2004-2007 he was a member of the National Research Council committee on post-doctoral research grants.From 2008 till 2010 he was a member of the Research Council of the Dutch Brain Foundation. In recent years he participated in a number of television documentaries on psychiatry.
At the Conference Prof. Witte Hoogendijk will discuss Evolution Therapy, an attempt to liberate ourselves a little from mental slavery.
