Virissa Lenters is an Assistant Professor in environmental epidemiology and exposome science at the University Medical Center Utrecht. She currently investigates how the pollutome and more broadly the urban and chemical exposome affect development and disease susceptibility, including the independent and mediating effects of the microbiome.

She earned her MSc and PhD in Epidemiology from Utrecht University. Her doctoral research focused on identifying environmental chemical exposures associated with impaired reproductive and respiratory child health. Beyond etiology, she focuses on statistical approaches to evaluate exposure mixtures. During her post-doctoral at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health and while visiting UC San Diego, she investigated how persistent organic pollutants and metals interact with gut microbiota, and further mediate associations between pollution and child health. She has also studied the health effects of environmental microbial exposures, asbestos, and air pollution within several EU and nationally funded projects, and has contributed to (inter)national human health risk assessments.