Her research interests include public policy, environmental policy and crisis politics. Her current research focuses on why and how public health crises such as food safety scandals, epidemics and environmental incidents lead to legal change in China, and what the nature of such change is.
Before joining Duke Kunshan, she was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and a lecturer at Mid Sweden University, where she taught courses on public administration, policy processes, and crisis politics.
Van den Dool has a B.A. in Chinese languages and cultures from Leiden University, the Netherlands; an M.Sc. in environmental science, policy and management from Lund University, Sweden; and a Ph.D. in law from the University of Amsterdam.