Maarten van der Heijden is a lawyer and social scientist dedicated to integrating research and analysis with global health policy. His academic work is centered on global health, law, and governance. His research interests include globally equitable innovation and access to medicines, the governance systems underpinning global health, the One Health approach, and the relationship between global health and humanitarian health. He uses ethnography to elucidate political economic structures that operate across multiple scales, drawing on Medical Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS).

Maarten has held positions at the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, Doctors Without Borders, and various other NGOs.

His doctoral research examines the creation of (im)possibilities and the processes of future-making in access to medicines.