Charlot Vandevoorde is group leader Space Radiobiology at GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany. She studied Biomedical Sciences at Ghent University, where she also obtained her PhD in Health Sciences in 2015. Since her PhD, she has been working in radiation biology, with a specific focus on low-dose health effects in the first few years, followed by a post-doc in particle radiobiology at iThemba Laboratory of Accelerator Based Sciences (LABS) in Cape Town, South Africa. In 2018, she was appointed as acting manager of the Radiation Biophysics Division at iThemba LABS, with research programs in particle therapy, nuclear medicine, space radiobiology and radiation protection. She gained extensive experience in accelerator-produced particle beams for biomedical applications, including ground-based radiation experiments with different space stressors (microgravity and stress hormones) and dose rate experiments with high-energy neutrons. Together with local collaborators, she launched the South African Space Neutron Initiative (SASNI) and was a member of the Biophysics & Radio-Biology Program Advisory Committee (Bio-PAC) at GSI.

In September 2022, she joined GSI-FAIR as group leader Space Radiobiology. She supports the implementation of ESA’s IBPER (Investigations into Biological and Physical Effects of Radiation) program at GSI-FAIR, which enables researchers to use the accelerator facilities to study the biological effects of cosmic radiation. She is also involved in the organization of the annual ESA-FAIR Summer School and is coordinator of the thematic working group on “Applications and Societal Benefits” of the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC) long range plan 2024.