Egija Zaura holds the esteemed position of University Research Chair Professor of Oral Microbial Ecology at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam and serves as the Division Head at the Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA), VU Amsterdam and University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

She obtained her Dental degree in 1995 from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden and Riga Stradins University, Latvia.

After graduation, Egija combined her work in a dental clinic in Riga with accomplishing a degree in General Dentistry at Riga Stradins University, Latvia, in 1997. In 2002, she acquired a PhD in Preventive Dentistry, cum laude, from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Her research topics span from biofilm models and clinical studies to advanced molecular technologies in oral microbial diagnostics and complex sequencing data analyses. Her current principal interests lay on oral microbial ecology at health and disease, and she is dedicated to translating this fundamental knowledge into clinical practice.

Since 2022, Egija has served as the director of the Research Priority Area on Personal microbiome Health  at the UvA (https://pmh-uva.nl/). Additionally, in 2023, she was appointed as an honorary Skou professor at Aarhus university, Denmark (https://health.au.dk/en/research/honorary-skou-professors).

Egija is chair of the MetaHealth program and consortium.