Rate My Professor Lonneke IJsseldijk

Dr. L.L. (Lonneke) IJsseldijk serves as Assistant Professor and Project Manager for Marine Mammal Stranding Research in the Division of Pathology, Department of Biomolecular Health Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University. Her research centers on pathology and health of marine mammals, with a focus on generating, analyzing, and interpreting data from stranded cetaceans such as harbour porpoises to identify causes of death and quantify human impacts like bycatch, vessel strikes, and pollution. Commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, her multidisciplinary work contributes to science, policy, and conservation efforts for marine mammal populations across Europe. IJsseldijk earned her PhD in 2021 from Utrecht University with the thesis "Living on a knife-edge: Unravelling harbour porpoise health through multidisciplinary and cross-border approaches," supervised by A. Gröne, J.A.P. Heesterbeek, and M.F. Leopold. She holds an MSc in Environmental Biology (2017) from Utrecht University, a BSc in Integrated Coastal Zone Management (2013) from Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences, and a minor in Marine Living Resources (2013) from Wageningen University.

IJsseldijk's career highlights include key publications such as "Large amounts of marine debris found in sperm whales stranded along the North Sea coast in early 2016" (2016), "Best practice on cetacean post mortem investigation and tissue sampling–joint ACCOBAMS and ASCOBANS document" (2019), "Exposing the grey seal as a major predator of harbour porpoises" (2015), "Plastic ingestion by harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena in the Netherlands: Establishing a standardised method" (2018), and "Spatiotemporal mortality and demographic trends in a small cetacean: strandings to inform conservation management" (2020). Recent works encompass "Traumatic injuries by grey seals on delphinids from northwest European waters" (2026) and "Postmortem Findings in Harbor Porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in the Netherlands" (2021). She received the Stairway to Impact Award in 2022 from NWO Domain Science (€50,000) for translating research into societal impact through public engagement via social media and collaborations with volunteers. IJsseldijk holds roles on the IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group, ASCOBANS Advisory Committee and Intersessional Working Groups on Beaked Whales and Prey Resource Depletion, ICES Working Group on Marine Mammal Ecology, and Rijkswaterstaat's Wind op Zee Ecologisch Programma expert group on marine mammals and underwater noise. She teaches Veterinary Professional level 3 courses, advancing pathology diagnostics and conservation pathology.