Mathijs graduated in 2007 with honors from Utrecht University.

He started working as an junior researcher at UC Davis (USA) on a project titled: 'Temporal trends in prevalence and in vitro antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of bacteria isolated from foals with sepsis'.

After this he worked as an equine practitioner at Lingehoeve Equine Hospital in The Netherlands.

In 2009 Mathijs started his internship at Utrecht University followed by a residency in equine internal medicine at the same institute. He passed his board exams at once in 2014.

At the moment Mathijs is Assistant Professor in Equine Internal Medicine at Utrecht University. He spends half of his time working in the clinic and teaching students. The other half of his time he is working on his PhD project, which is a collaboration between the Department of Equine Sciences and the Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology (Clinical Infectiology) of Utrecht University. A part of his PhD will be undertaken at the University of California in Davis (USA). His research is focussed on antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of bacteria isolated from horses and the gut microbiome of horses.

Mathijs' special interests are microbiology, antimicrobial drugs, neonatology and liver diseases.