About Geertjan

FOUNDER YOUTH PREVENTION LAB

"Our youths are our future—they should be our number 1 priority. If our youths thrive, as a society we will prosper, becoming happier and healthier."

PROFESSOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT

Geertjan Overbeek

Geertjan graduated in Developmental Psychology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. During his PhD, he studied how parent-child interactions early in life predicted ‘social health’ in adolescence—examining whether based on their early experience with caregivers adolescents were able to develop satisfying relationships with peers and romantic partners.

His interest in child and adolescent social development never left him since. From 2003 onward, he has worked tirelessly to examine how and under which circumstances, one’s early upbringing—by parents and peers—is linked to developmental risk.

In 2013, Geertjan moved to the University of Amsterdam as full professor, founding a new research lab to focus on youth prevention and developing a new master’s program on preventive youth care. The mission of the Youth Prevention Lab is to increase our knowledge about how we can stimulate the development of health, resilience and satisfying social relationships in children and adolescents worldwide.

Apart from being a passionate researcher, Geertjan loves teaching and tutoring and feels strongly committed to inspiring next-generation scientists and practitioners. He takes multiple responsibilities, amongst others as director of the Research Institute Child Development and Education, head of the UvA research priority area Youth Digitality, board member of the Dutch Association for Developmental Psychology, and as editor for the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Photo: Kirsten van Santen

Academic staff supervised

Publications (co-)authored

150 +

Total funding ID

12.5 M

CURRICULUM VITAE

Scientific Output

Here is an overview of my scientific output, funding ID, and curriculum vitae. I try to update these regularly.

Funding & Awards

Below is an overview of the most important and consequential funding and awards that I and my team have received over the past years. Since 2003, the total funding ID has amounted to more than 12.5 million euros, with 76% of this funding secured as PI. A full overview of grants can be found in my cv.

In gratitude, I recognise that this support has been indispensable—we would have never been able to learn so much (and feedback our new
knowledge to practice) without this support.

Dutch Science Council Talent Program (the ‘veni, vidi, vici’ grant scheme)

Aim of the Talent Program is to support the most adventurous, talented, pioneering researchers, to develop their own line of research and further develop their talent. I was able to initiate and consolidate research on youth bio-ecological development and (epi)gene-environment interplay based on this.

Secured funding: 2.55 million euros

Awards (for research and teaching)

From the international EARA and ECDP organizations for research on adolescence and developmental psychology, I received two ‘leading young scholar’ awards in 2005 and 2008. From Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam, I received two independent ‘teacher of the year awards’ in 2010 and 2014.

University of Amsterdam RPA Funding

UvA research priority areas (RPAs) are direct university funding sources to drive research innovations in particular domains. One of our research lines on parent and peer influences on youth development has been highly successful in attracting funding from RPAs on child development, mental health, and digitality.

Secured funding: 4.89 million euros

ZonMw Funding for (Mental) Healthcare and Evaluations

The competitive ZonMw grant schemes have funded our research lines on evidence-based preventive youth care, in which we focused on ‘what works for whom’ in for example volunteer-based parenting support programs, anti-bullying programs, and social emotional skill-building programs.

Secured funding: 1.82 million euros

Key Publications

Parent-child relationships, partner relationships, and emotional adjustment: A birth-to-maturity prospective study.

Developmental Psychology

What works for whom in school-based anti-bullying interventions? An individual participant data meta-analysis

Prevention Science

Meta-analyses: Key parenting program components for disruptive child behavior

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Families who benefit and families who do not: Integrating person- and variable-centered analyses of parenting intervention responses

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Underlying mechanisms of gene–environment interactions in externalizing behavior: A systematic review and search for theoretical mechanisms

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review