​Niel Hens is a biostatistician and mathematical epidemiologist with over 20 years of experience in human epidemiology and an established international expert in infectious disease modelling. He is Full Professor in biostatistics, director of the Center for Statistics, co-director of the SIMID consortium, and director of the Data Science Institute (DSI, UHasselt) and holder of the scientific chair in evidence-based vaccinology at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute (Vaxinfectio, University of Antwerp). He is elected member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.