About
I'm a neurosurgeon at Maastricht UMC+ and associate professor at Maastricht University's Research Institute MHeNS. My clinical focus is stereotactic neurosurgery and robotics, and for the past decade I've been drawn to where neurosurgery meets computation: digital neurosurgery, and increasingly, invasive neurotechnology.
I trained as a physician at Maastricht University (MD, 2002), did my neurosurgical residency there from 2003 to 2013, and became a staff neurosurgeon in 2014. Alongside clinical training I kept building things — software, courses, companies — and that track became as much a part of my professional identity as the operating room.
How I got here
My interest in technology predates brain-computer interfaces by years. In 2010, still a resident, I built NeuroMind, a clinical decision-support app for neurosurgeons, porting it from iPhone to Android with early online collaboration tools — novel enough that I presented it at the Medicine 2.0 congress. I started DigitalNeurosurgeon.com in 2012 to write about where the field was heading, then took that interest institutional: eHealth medical programme manager at Maastricht UMC+ from 2014 to 2019, and chair of the Deep Brain Stimulation alliance between MUMC and Radboud UMC from 2019 to 2022.
Together with Dr. Christian Herff, whom I helped attract to Maastricht UMC+, I co-supervise our BCI research pipeline. We secured an NWO Take Off phase 1 grant in December 2023 to develop a BCI business plan, and MUMC+ is one of two centers in the Netherlands, alongside UMC Utrecht, working toward first-in-man invasive BCI applications. My 2024 paper in JMIR Neurotechnology critically assesses where the field actually stands versus the hype — useful skepticism this early in something this consequential.
Alongside BCI, I lead a remote-programming and remote-monitoring pilot for Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson's disease, an established technique (roughly 200,000 implants worldwide, 40-60 procedures a year at MUMC+) where patient follow-up still has room to improve. The pilot raised patient satisfaction, increased tertiary referrals, and was featured on Dutch prime-time news (RTL4).
NeuroMind Academy
Since 2026 I've been co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of NeuroMind Academy, which grew out of DecisiX BV, the company I founded in 2020 to build neuromind.app and neuromind.academy. NeuroMind Academy is, to our knowledge, the world's first AI-supported accredited continuing medical education platform (EACCME-accredited), with courses like Digital Neurosurgery, Digital Neurology, and Digital Psychiatry covering what AI, machine learning, and large language models mean for clinical practice. Find it at neuromind.academy.
Disclosure: I am a co-founder, shareholder, and Chief Medical Officer of NeuroMind Academy (DecisiX BV), a private company in AI-supported personalized continuing medical education, relevant context for anything I write or say about digital health and AI in medicine.
A few other things I've built
A few smaller ventures: NeurExplain.com (2020), explaining neurosurgery one picture at a time; Fundamentals of Clinical Data Science (2019), an open-access ebook I lead-edited that's become, by most measures, the most-used open-access ebook in its field; and ProgrammingForPhysicians.com (2015), a Python crash course for clinicians tired of being intimidated by code.
PhD
I defended my PhD thesis, "Ultra low-field strength intraoperative MRI for glioblastoma surgery," at Maastricht University on February 6, 2014, on using a low-field intraoperative MRI system to improve resection outcomes in glioblastoma surgery — the most pressing technical problem in front of me at that point in my career.
Career timeline
Co-founder and CMO, NeuroMind Academy (joint venture including DecisiX)
Associate professor, Maastricht University, Research Institute MHeNS
Founder, CEO and CMO, DecisiX BV (neuromind.app, neuromind.academy)
Assistant professor, Maastricht University, MHeNS
Chairman, Deep Brain Stimulation alliance MUMC – Radboud UMC
Steering committee member, NFU Citrienfonds
Staff neurosurgeon, Maastricht University Medical Center
eHealth medical programme manager, Maastricht UMC+
Founder and owner, DigitalNeurosurgeon.com
Committee member, NVVN "Communication" committee
Resident in neurosurgery, Maastricht University hospital
Medical education, Maastricht University — graduated MD, 2002
Recognition
Named one of the top 100 Twitter influencers worldwide in my domain (DOI: 10.1016/j.inat.2022.101545).
EU Brain Innovation Days finalist with NeuroMind (best 10%).
NeuroMind listed as the #1 app for neurosurgery in CNS Quarterly Magazine (Fall 2013), which also called it "the overall most rated and highest rated application out of all applications reviewed."
Named one of the "Top Ten Internet-Smart Doctors in the World" by InternetMedicine.com, for NeuroMind.
NeuroMind coverage in the New York Times ("The App as Health Aide"), alongside an honorable mention in iMedicalApps' iPad Top Apps series.
Additional prize on Slice of Life 2005 for the Mobile Electronic Logbook and Mobile Electronic Notebook, building on the 2004 winning concept.
1st prize (Student Software Award), Slice of Life 2004, for a PDA-based electronic logbook and content management system — my first software award.
A couple of the reviews NeuroMind picked up along the way:
"The overall most rated and highest rated application out of all applications reviewed." — CNS Quarterly, Fall 2013
"Great app, and a needed pocket companion for any modern neurosurgeon." — Ron Zellem, neurosurgeon, Hendersonville, TN
"An excellent app specifically targeted at neurosurgeons, neurologist and students working on neuro-based subjects." — TechVela.com