Rate My Professor Jean-Marie Aerts

Jean-Marie Aerts is a full professor in the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven, serving as chair of the Department of Biosystems since August 2021. He heads the Division of Animal and Human Health Engineering, the Human Health Engineering Group, and chairs the Leuven Medical Technology Centre. Aerts is the co-founder of M3-BIORES (Measure, Model & Manage Bioresponses). He earned a BSc and MSc in Bio-engineering, along with a PhD in Applied Biological Engineering in 2001, all from KU Leuven. His academic career at the institution advanced from assistant professor (2007-2011) and associate professor (2011-2015) to full professor since 2015.

Aerts specializes in human health engineering, employing data-based mechanistic modelling of biological systems to create controllers and monitors for human health applications. His work includes developing real-time algorithms for model-based monitoring of physical and mental health status via wearable technology, with applications such as stress, drowsiness, and thermal comfort detection in truck drivers. He has authored over 300 publications, accumulating thousands of citations. Notable publications encompass 'Human Health Engineering: Going From Biology to Technology' (2023), 'Lactate-Based Model Predictive Control Strategy of Cell Populations in a Fixed-Bed Bioreactor' (2020), and 'Dynamic Model-Based Monitoring of Human Thermal Comfort for Real-Time and Personalized Climate Control' (2019). Aerts serves as a scientific advisor to the KU Leuven spin-off BioRICS NV, focusing on mental health monitoring technologies, and contributes to institutes including the KU Leuven Digital Society Institute, Institute for Mobility, and One Health Institute.