dr.ir. HH (Ellen) Kranenbarg-Stolte

Understanding how human and animal bodies function has always fascinated Ellen Kranenbarg. Explaining these processes to students—often through examples of evolutionary adaptations—has been a central theme throughout her career, beginning with her work as a student assistant in Zoology.

During her MSc at Wageningen University, she completed an internship at the Department of Infectious Diseases in Vancouver and wrote her thesis within the Cell Biology and Immunology (CBI) group in Wageningen. After graduating, she continued at Wageningen as a PhD candidate, studying the effects of stress on the immune system in common carp (Cyprinus carpio) from an evolutionary perspective. This highly stimulating project was a collaboration between the Animal Physiology group at Radboud University and the CBI group in Wageningen, and included the supervision of several MSc students.

Following her PhD, Ellen moved to Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital in Utrecht, where she worked on tumour immunology and inhibitory immune receptors. However, Wageningen remained her academic home, and she soon returned for an extended period at the chair group of Host Microbe Interactomics (HMI). There, she contributed to the European research project Dietary Fibres Supporting Gut and Immune Function, investigating the health benefits of prebiotics. This was followed by participation in the project Exploiting the Microbiome to Prevent and Treat Human Disease, focusing on probiotics, in which she co-supervised a PhD candidate. During this time, she also expanded her teaching activities and obtained her University Teaching Qualification (UTQ).

To further develop her teaching profile, Ellen joined the Experimental Zoology (EZO) group, where she assumed responsibility for several courses, including the Zoology course that originally inspired her passion for biology. After a brief period of combining positions in two chair groups, she became a full-time lecturer at EZO, coordinating and teaching multiple courses.

Although teaching remains a highly rewarding part of her work and her main focus, Ellen has recently rediscovered her enthusiasm for research. She is now part of the supervision team of a PhD project that brings together fish biology, immunology, and evolutionary biology—her ideal combination of research themes.