Stijn Bekkers was born in 1991 in the Netherlands. He completed his undergraduate studies in Amsterdam and subsequently moved to Boston for a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Boston. After graduating as a medical doctor in 2016, he was appointed as an ENT registrar in Nijmegen. Parallel to his training, he was actively and passionately engaged in different research projects, including his PhD and two PhDs in ear and skull base pathology, of which he is the co-promotor. He is the initiator and chairman of the ‘Beter Horen’ ENT science prize, and Stijn has a strong passion for ear and skull base surgery, which is illustrated by his winning the first prize of the ‘Dutch Temporal Bone Dissection Prize’ and continuing his surgical training in Australia through the fellowship skull base surgery at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane from August 2022.