dr. Saskia Haitjema (1988) is an associate professor at the Central Diagnostic Laboratory and head of the Utrecht Patient Oriented Database (UPOD). She studied Medicine and Linguistics at Utrecht University and obtained her PhD in Experimental cardiology in 2017. During her PhD she studied sex-differences in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease using large datasets, as a first step in precision medicine.

Her current research focuses on improving diagnostics using data analytics to further personalize healthcare. She collaborates in multidisciplinary teams to address diagnostic problems inside and outside the UMC Utrecht, specifically using a unique set of routine hematology characteristics. The processing of routine care data into meaningful data to create value using the learning healthcare system approach is one of the cornerstones of her lab.

Between 2017 and 2020, dr. Haitjema co-lead the corporate Applied Data Analytics in Medicine program of the UMC Utrecht (now: Digital health department). She has supervised three PhD candidates and currently supervises seven. She obtained research funding from ZonMw, HealthHolland and currently participates in six different European research and innovation projects.

As a (guest) lecturer for Utrecht University and the Dutch national Academy for Digitalization and Computerization, dr. Haitjema aims to demystify the current technological advances in artificial intelligence and digital health for students and Ministry staff. At the Dutch Research Council, dr. Haitjema participates in the VENI and Off-Road committees.

Dr. Haitjema aims to actively connect data scientists, healthcare professionals and researchers and established a vibrant data science community in the UMC Utrecht in the SIG Clinical Data Applications of the Focus Area Applied Data Science of Utrecht University. She is involved in strategic meetings and expert panels on digital health inside and outside the UMC Utrecht. With the Dutch Ministry of Health she developed an AI development tool for healthcare, including legislation and state-of-the-art practices.