Personal information
Meike Bartels (1973) is assistant professor at the Department of Biological Psychology, EMGO+-Institute, VU University Amsterdam.
Research Topics and Biography
I studied Physiological Psychology at the VU University . After an internship at the Queensland institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, I returned to Amsterdam to start my PhD, focusing on causes of variation in psychopathology and cognition throughout childhood. At the end of my PhD, I conducted research at the Virginia Institute of Psychiatric and Behavior Genetics. Focus of my research over the past years has been on psychopathology and wellbeing. I, however, increasingly realized that the majority of individuals remain free of psychopathology throughout there life. Struck by this fact I became aware that by focusing on the 'rare' group of individuals that suffer from psychopathology, we overlook the group of individuals that are happy and well-adjusted. Ever since I have broadened focus and became interested in wellbeing. Supported by funding of NWO (Veni and Bilateral agreement) and the unique database of the Netherlands Twin Register (NTR: www.tweelingenregister.org), questions on wellbeing became part of the survey research of the NTR. I hope that over the coming decade the public health system will be broadened, so that the aim will no longer be to only help to heal the ill but also to increase overall happiness.