Roby Cremers wins international scholarship for kidney transplantation research

The award is particularly notable because it is only the second time since the scholarship was established in 2002 that it has been awarded to a researcher outside North America. 

Research into kidney transplantation 

Cremers’ research focuses on policy design for kidney allocation. Given that transplantation is the preferred treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease, these policies can have an enormous impact on the lives of patients.  

An important aspect is fairness: ideally all patients have an equal chance of receiving a transplant. Operations research provides mathematical and analytical tools to help evaluate such decisions and develop policies for allocating scarce resources. Cremers is supervised by Albert Wagelmans and Twan Dollevoet. 

Recently, she finished a project on the integration of living and deceased donation in collaboration with Dollevoet, Joris van de Klundert, and Michal Mankowski.In her current project, she is looking at the dynamic aspect of the allocation in living kidney donation. Dollevoet: ‘In both cases, Roby has developed highly sophisticated optimisation methods in order to improve outcomes for individual patients as well as fairness in kidney transplantation policies.’ 

The Bonder Scholarship 

The Bonder Scholarship is awarded annually to a PhD candidate with an interest in applying process modelling and operations research (OR) to challenges in healthcare design, delivery or operations. It aims to support the development of highly qualified researchers and encourage the exchange of knowledge in health services research. 

The scholarship provides a research fund of $4,000. The winner also receives an additional $2,000 award funded by the Seth Bonder Foundation. Cremers will be officially recognised at the 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting, which takes place from 1 to 4 November in San Francisco, United States.