About us
Marileen Dogterom (b. 1967, Utrecht) is a Dutch biophysicist renowned for her work on the cell cytoskeleton. She is a professor at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology and received the prestigious Spinoza Prize in 2018.
She studied theoretical physics at the University of Groningen and earned her PhD in 1994 from the University of Paris-Sud, later working as a postdoc at Bell Labs. Dogterom held research and academic positions at FOM Institute AMOLF (1997–2013), Leiden University (from 2000), and Delft University (since 2014), where she now chairs the Department of Bionanoscience. In 2016, she became a "Medical Delta Professor" with joint roles at Delft and Leiden.
She collaborates with cell biologist Anna Akhmanova, and their joint research received an ERC Synergy Grant in 2013. Dogterom currently leads efforts to build the first artificial cell, focusing on reconstructing and studying the cytoskeleton outside the cell.
She served as Vice President (2020–2022) and is currently President (since 2022) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was selected as leermeester (professor of excellence) of TU Delft at 2025.
