Contact details

Prof. Dr. Jana Asselman
Research Group “Blue Growth Research Lab”
Department of Animal production and aquatic ecology
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Ghent University
Wetenschapspark 1, 8400 Oostende (Belgium)

Marine@UGent Consortium
Ghent University
Wetenschapspark 1, 8400 Oostende (Belgium)

Web of Science Researcher ID: AEZ-8987-2022
ORCID code: 0000-0003-0185-6516
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jana-asselman-9873a121/ 
Bluesky: @janaasselman.bsky.social
Research Group: https://bluegrowthlab.ugent.be/
Research Consortium: https://www.ugent.be/marine/en

Short biography

Jana Asselman earned her PhD in Applied Biological Sciences from UGent in 2014. With a Francqui Foundation BAEF fellowship, she spent a year at Notre Dame University (USA) focusing on molecular ecology and epigenomics. In 2015, she received an FWO junior fellowship on transcriptomics in freshwater invertebrates, followed by an FWO Research Grant (2017) to integrate epigenetic methods into environmental risk assessment. She declined an FWO senior fellowship in 2019 to begin her professorship at UGent. She was appointed the first full-time professor at UGent’s Ostend Science Park campus, tasked with launching and coordinating marine and maritime R&D, including the Marine@UGent research facilities. These facilities, part of a network of over 70 UGent research groups across 10 faculties, have received €750,000 in infrastructure funding and will be operational by fall 2025 under her leadership.

Her research centers on molecular approaches to stressor-ecosystem interactions, focusing on marine copepods and vertebrate cell lines, with implications for environmental and human health including microplastic pollution.  She has published 89 peer-reviewed papers (85% Q1 journals), with >900 non-self-citations and an h-index of 22 (Web of Science). Full list: https://biblio.ugent.be/person/802000893345. She serves on numerous national/international committees (e.g., VLIZ, SCOR Belgium, BELTOX, EMBRC), chairs the SETAC EVOGENERATE group, and is an editor for Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry. She frequently reviews for top journals and funding agencies in Europe. In education, she teaches two MSc courses (Oceans & Human Health, Aquaculture Environmental Impact) and co-lectures in three others where she addresses microplastic pollution and its impact on human and environmental health.

List of selected ongoing projects

• “BOOSting excellence in environmental EPIgenetics (EPIBOOST)”. The EPIBOOST project joins a widening partner and two internationally-leading partners that will steer a solid capacitation strategy towards tackling the challenges to the recently proposed uptake of epigenomics by Environmental Assessment frameworks. Funded by Horizon Europe
  Principal researcher
  Duration: 01-10-2022/30-09-2025

• “EU Partnership for the Risk Assessment of Chemicals” PARC aims to develop next-generation chemical risk assessment to protect human health and the environment. It supports the European Union's Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and the European Green Deal's “Zero pollution” ambition with new data, knowledge, methods and tools, expertise and networks.
  Affiliated Entity – Principal Researcher
  Duration: 01-05-2022/ 30-04-2029

A full overview of all projects can be found here: https://research.ugent.be/web/person/jana-asselman-0/projects/en