dr.ing. DJMA (Desiree) Beaujean

Desirée Beaujean (1970), was born in Heerlen, in the south of the Netherlands. After completing her gymnasium studies at the St Bernardinuscollege in Heerlen in 1988, she started studying Health Sciences at the Radboud University Nijmegen. In her second year she switched to the Hogeschool Eindhoven to study a brand-new degree course in Hygiene and Sterilisation Technology, successfully graduating in July 1993. Her final internship in the department of Hospital Hygiene at the University Medical Center of Utrecht (UMCU) led to an employment contract starting in July 1993. She worked for several years as an infection control practitioner in the UMCU and, in 1996, began a part-time course in Health Sciences at Maastricht University, specialising in Health Education. For three years she worked four days a week at the UMCU and travelled for her study every Friday to Maastricht University. In September 1999 she received her degree, on the very day that her first son Thomas was born! Meanwhile, in January 1999, she had taken a place as a junior researcher at the University Utrecht working on an international study examining the link between the development of antibiotic resistance, infection control policies and antibiotic policies in ten European hospitals. In May 2000 Desirée began a three year investigation into the quality of specialist medical care at the Netherlands Institute for Health Services (Nivel). Since April 2003 she has been employed by the National Coordination Centre for Communicable Disease Control (LCI), which became part of the Centre for Infectious Disease Control of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in June 2005. Since then Desirée was head of the ‘Guideline Development and Implementation’ department, a department which was responsible for the development and implementation of guidelines on infectious disease control in public health. In January 2017, the National Centre for Hygiene and Safety (LCHV) was integrated in her department. In November 2015, Desirée won the RIVM Innovation Price after developing the ‘Tick Removal Trainer’ and she was ‘RIVM-employee of the year’ in 2016. 
October 2017 she started she started at the Dutch College of General Practitioners as head of the Practice, Quality and Innovation department and member of the management team. She led this department for 3 years. Her career at Wageningen Food Safety and Research started in October 2020 as teamleader of the team Virology, GGO and Visual Techniques. This research team consists of more than 20 professionals working in laboratories and desk researchers working in the field of virology, genetic modified organisms and visual techniques.