Pepijn is a research assistant at the Department of Environmental Biology, performing field work and lab work to study the impact of climate change on the abundance and diversity of mosquitoes in the Netherlands.

More information about Pepijn Helleman

Professional experience

Pepijn graduated from the MSc Biology with the Evolutionary Biology track at Leiden University in 2025. During his first MSc research project, he worked on the relation between population genetics and ecology of different mosquito species from the Dutch Caribbean, for which he took part in an sampling expedition on Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire. For his second MSc research project, he studied the biogeographical patterns of insular mammalian diversity, comparing phylogenetic diversity and species diversity metrics to identify hotspots of threatened diversity on a global scale.

During both his BSc and MSc studies, Pepijn has contributed to multiple scientific publications, and published his first leading-author publication on the population genetics of Dutch Caribbean mosquitoes. Furthermore, he has presented both his MSc projects on conferences in the Netherlands (NLSEB 2025) and France (ESOVE 2024).

Research Topic

Pepijn is working as a research assistent, aiding with the fieldwork and lab work as part of the PhD project of Jordy van der Beek (CML: Department of Environmental Biology) on the impact of climate change on mosquitoes and vector-borne disease risk in the Netherlands, which is part of the Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Center frontrunner project "Climate change and vector-borne virus outbreaks".

Publications