Paul Wieringa, PhD, is an Assistant Professor leading the Neural Engineering activities in the Complex Tissue Engineering Department of the MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine at Maastricht University. His research focuses on developing 3D in vitro platforms to explore the role of pancreas innervation in Diabetes as well as other pathologies and tissues.

Originally from Canada, Paul obtained his Bachelors in Applied Science in the Integrated Engineering Program at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He then crossed the Atlantic by sailboat, finally reaching Europe to begin his Master’s at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, with a specialization in Neural Engineering. During this time, he studied neurite growth within microfluidic channels. This lead him towards a Ph.D. in the development of a regenerative neural interface, beginning his studies into the development of 3D scaffolds for neural regeneration at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy, and later completing his degree at the University of Twente in the Tissue Regeneration Department.

This was followed by a post-doctoral fellowship from 2014 to 2017 at the MERLN Institute on technological development of electrospinning, melt electrowriting (MEW), and hybrid scaffolds to create specifically designed cell micro-niches for neural and regenerative medicine applications. In 2017, he was awarded the VENI personal grant by the NWO and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2018.