Judith Rietjens works as an assistant professor at the Department of Public Health of Erasmus MC Rotterdam (NL) and at the End-of-Life Care Research Group of the Ghent University & Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE). She is health scientist by training. In 2010 she was a visiting scholar at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven and in 2005 at the Northwestern University in Chicago. She completed her PhD on the practice of palliative sedation and attitudes of the public and professionals towards end-of-life decisions in 2006. In 2009, she received a VENI grant (Innovational Research Incentives for Academic Excellence) and a EUR fellowship to continue her studies on the practice of palliative sedation. She coordinates the international EAPC recognized UNBIASED study evaluating the practice of palliative sedation in the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. Other research interest of Judith are the quality of death and dying, different perspectives on end-of-life decision-making (e.g. international comparisons, comparisons of perspectives of patients, relatives, and healthcare professionals), and media representations of end-of-life decisions. In 2011, Judith was one of the winners of the EAPC 'Young Investigator Award'.