Wendy Janssens is Professor in Development Economics. She is the director of the HERA institute (Health Economics Research Amsterdam), academic board member of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD), and research fellow at the Tinbergen Institute. She is also research advisor for PharmAccess Foundation. Currently, she is leading amongst others an interdisciplinary research programme on mobile technology and universal health coverage for mothers and children in Kenya, including the evaluation of maternal mental health interventions.
She has received numerous research grants, including a BRAC grant to study digital finance, women's empowerment and mental well-being in Kenya; a DFID-ESRC grant to study social norms and child marriage in Pakistan; an NWO-Wotro grant to study family planning, HIV/AIDS and empowerment in Mozambique; and an NWO-VENI grant to study the interaction between health insurance and microfinance in Sub-Saharan Africa.
She has extensive experience in designing and coordinating multi-disciplinary research programmes to provide rigorous and locally grounded policy advice to national and international organisations as well as governments (such as Oxfam Novib, Pathfinder International, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the World Bank).