Janneke Balk studied Molecular and Cell Biology at the Agricultural University in Wageningen, the Netherlands. She obtained her D.Phil from the University of Oxford in 2000, where she studied the molecular basis of cytoplasmic male sterility in sunflower with relevance for hybrid crops. After 2 years as a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Marburg in Germany, she returned to the UK to start her own research group at the University of Cambridge in 2005. Her research is focussed on iron in plants, including the biosynthesis of iron-sulfur cofactors and intracellular transport and storage of iron, with relevance for crop improvement and human nutrition. In 2011 she moved to the John Innes Centre in Norwich, where she is applying knowledge gained from model species to biofortify wheat with iron and zinc.