Rate My Professor Lonneke Lenferink

Lonneke Lenferink is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology, Health and Technology within the Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences at the University of Twente. A University of Twente alumna, she completed her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Master’s degrees in Health Psychology & Technology and Positive Clinical Psychology & Technology at the university, and earned her PhD from the University of Groningen with a dissertation titled The disappearance of a significant other: Consequences and Care. After postdoctoral positions at the University of Groningen and Utrecht University, she joined the University of Twente in 2021. She also serves as an endowed professor at the University of Groningen and guest researcher at Aarhus University, the University of New South Wales, and the University of Bergen.

Lenferink's research centers on the definition, assessment, prediction, and treatment of prolonged grief disorder, especially after traumatic losses including violent deaths, long-term disappearances, traffic accidents, disasters such as the MH17 plane crash, and bereavement during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has developed and validated tools like the Traumatic Grief Inventory-Self Report Plus (TGI-SR+), now available in fifteen languages for use in research and clinical practice. Utilizing ecological momentary assessment, she examines grief fluctuations in daily life and leads randomized controlled trials of online cognitive behavioral therapies for prolonged grief in adults and children. Notable publications include Prolonged grief disorder following the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (2020, 420 citations), Valid measurement of DSM-5 persistent complex bereavement disorder and DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 prolonged grief disorder: The Traumatic Grief Inventory-Self Report Plus (TGI-SR+) (2022, 224 citations), Trajectories of grief, depression, and posttraumatic stress in disaster-bereaved people (2020, 164 citations), and CBT for prolonged grief in children and adolescents: A randomized clinical trial (2021, 143 citations). She has obtained over three million euros in funding as principal investigator, including NWO Veni (2022), XS (2024), VIDI (2025), and the KNAW Early Career Award (2024). Ranked third worldwide in productivity on prolonged grief disorder research, Lenferink supervises PhD candidates, teaches psychology courses on needs assessment, group dynamics, and research methods, and holds roles on editorial boards and committees such as De Jonge Akademie (since 2026).