Joke van der Giessen is DVM, PhD DipEVPC. She is registered specialist Veterinary Microbiology (1995) and Diplomate European Veterinary College (DipEVPC) (2005). Since 1995, she has been working at the National Institute of Public Health and the environment (RIVM). Her expertise is on zoonoses, One Health. She headed the National Reference Laboratory Foodborne Zoonotic Parasites (1995-2025) and coordinated national and international projects on zoonoses and public health with main focus on surveillance, risk assessment and risk mitigation of foodborne parasites and emerging zoonoses. She chaired the workshop ‘global ranking of foodborne parasites ‘for the FAO/WHO in 2012, FERG symposium in Amsterdam in 2015. President of Dutch Society of Parasitology (2011-2014) and the International Committee of Trichinellosis (2015-2019). Since 2022 she is topexpert on emerging zoonoses prevention at RIVM. In november 2025 she retired but is still active in the field of zoonoses and parasitology by supervising PHD students.