Dr. Joost Heutink appointed Professor by Special Appointment

As of 1 November, Dr. Joost Heutink has been appointed as Professor by Special Appointment at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences of the University of Groningen. The special chair "Visual Disorders of Acquired Brain Injury" was established in collaboration with Visio, a centre of expertise for people with vision problems.

Purpose of the chair "Visual Disorders of Acquired Brain Injury"
The Chair "Visual Disorders of Acquired Brain Injury" was created because Visio has seen an increase in the number of clients who experience serious problems with visual perception due to a brain disorder. Heutink has been at the intersection of science and care with regard to these problems for more than ten years. He explains which challenges underline the importance of this chair: "It is well known that visual problems due to acquired brain injury are not always timely recognized. Developing more knowledge about visual impairment in acquired brain disorders helps to better understand and explain these disorders. This knowledge will then help to develop better methods of diagnosis and rehabilitation, in order to provide even better support to visually impaired people".

The Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences is very pleased with Heutink's appointment. Dean Kees Aarts: "This new role for Joost Heutink further strengthens the link between our neuropsychological research and clinical practice. We are very pleased that in this way we can continue and intensify the collaboration with Koninklijke Visio."

The Visio Board of Directors is enthusiastic about the collaboration as well: “This is a great development to expand and strengthen the knowledge and expertise on this subject. With this chair, Visio hopes to contribute to increasing the participation of people with acquired brain damage, ”said Margreeth Kasper de Kroon, chairman of the Visio Board of Directors.

The chair is financially supported by the Novum foundation. Novum is committed to financially supporting projects and programs that contribute to the well-being of partially sighted and blind people in the Netherlands and abroad.

About Joost Heutink
Joost Heutink studied psychology at the RUG. After that he worked for two years as a researcher in Cambridge (UK) and Turku (Finland). In 2007 he obtained his PhD degree at the University of Groningen on the subject of Visual Information Processing.

Since 2004 Heutink has worked at Visio as a (healthcare) psychologist and from 2017 as director of Knowledge, Expertise & Innovation (KEI). In addition to his position at Visio, he is associate professor at the Clinical and Developmental Neuropsychology Unit of the Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the RUG. There he teaches psychology students and conducts research in the field of diagnostics and rehabilitation of visual perception disorders due to brain disorders. He also supervises several PhD students as (co)supervisor.