Jolien Rietkerk, Dr. rer. nat., Msc.

Biography

Dr. Rietkerk has a varied background in molecular life sciences, having obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science in molecular life sciences in the Netherlands. Utilizing her knowledge of biomedical molecular pathways, neuro-behavioral biology and applied data science Dr. Rietkerk’s doctoral research investigated the complex polygenic architecture of psychiatric disorders and comorbidities at Helmholtz Munich and Technical University of Munich in Germany. Dr. Rietkerk’s extensive international network and experience allow for research that is driven to have a wide societal impact and utilizes expertise of different disciplines, people and contexts. Through her efforts, Jolien aims to destigmatize and personalize psychiatric care, whilst pushing the boundaries of statistical genetics methods and big datasets.

Affiliations

• Institute for Genomics in Health, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY
• Health in Context, Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion Regulation, Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands
• Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics and Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.

• Na Cai, Richard Border, Aditya Gorla, Jolien Rietkerk, Joel Mefford, Noah Zaitlen, Morten Dybdahl Krebs, Andrew J. Schork, Kenneth Kendler & Jonathan Flint. (2026) “The predicament of heritable confounders” Nature Genetics. DOI: 10.1038/s41588-025-02465-y
• Jolien Rietkerk, Morten Dybdahl Krebs, Joel Mefford, Lianyun Huang, Kajsa-Lotta Georgii Hellberg, iPSYCH Study Consortium, Anders Borglum, Thomas Werge, Kenneth S. Kendler, Jonathan Flint, Andrew J. Schork, Andrew Dahl, Na Cai (2025) “Genetic risk effects on psychiatric disorders act in sets”, MedRXiv DOI:10.1101/2025.07.23.25332043
• Lianyun Huang, Sonja Tang, Jolien Rietkerk, Vivek Appadurai, Morten Dybdahl Krebs, Andrew J Schork, Thomas Werge, Verena Zuber , Kenneth Kendler, Na Cai. (2024) “Polygenic Analyses Show Important Differences Between Major Depressive Disorder Symptoms Measured Using Various Instruments” Biological Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2023.11.021

Website

www.rietkerk-research.com