Filip Boyen graduated at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (option “ruminants”), Ghent University, Belgium in 2002. In that year, he started his PhD research on Salmonella pathogenesis in pigs at the Laboratory of Veterinary Bacteriology and Mycology at the same Faculty. He finalized his PhD in 2007, and worked at the Division of Poultry, Exotic Companion Animals, Wildlife and Experimental Animals for 1 year as assistant. In 2008, he joined the Laboratory of Veterinary Bacteriology and Mycology again as laboratory coordinator, a position with diagnostic, teaching and research responsibilities he still holds today. In 2010, he successfully applied for de facto Diplomate in the European College for Porcine Health Management, which was successfully renewed in 2015. Since 2019, he chose to be non-certified Diplomate for the ECPHM, and became EBVS® European Specialist at the European College of Veterinary Microbiology (ECVM). His research addresses different bacterial diseases in various animals species, ranging from an occasional clinical case report, over pathogenesis research and susceptibility testing, to experimental trials. He considers himself to be a “generalist”, but his main topics of interest are antimicrobial resistance in bacterial pathogens of veterinary and zoonotic importance and diagnostics in general and the use of MALDI-TOF MS in diagnostics and innovative applications of this technique in specific.