Virissa Lenters is an Assistant Professor in environmental epidemiology and exposome science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. 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 chemical exposures, including plastic-associated chemicals, associated with impaired reproductive and child health. Beyond etiology, she focuses on statistical approaches to evaluate exposure mixtures. During her post-doctoral fellowship at the Norwegian Institute for Public Health and while visiting UC San Diego, she investigated how chemical pollutants interact with gut microbiota. She has also studied the health effects of environmental microbial exposures, asbestos, and air pollution within several EU and nationally funded projects, and has collaborated on (inter)national human health risk assessments.