Ann Van Soom graduated in 1988 as DVM at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Belgium, and obtained a PhD in the development of bovine embryos in 1996. At present, she holds a position as a full professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, Reproduction and Population Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University.

She has been a diplomat of the European College of Animal Reproduction (ECAR) since 1999 and has been a member of the EVSSAR and the IETS for many years. She is supervising a group of about 10 PhD students and three postdocs working together on embryonic development and semen quality in different model species, like horses, cattle, cats, dogs and pigs. The main goals of the research performed at the Reproductive Biology Unit are to determine the causes of epigenetic changes and inferior quality of in vitro-produced embryos by focusing on the suboptimal culture conditions in vitro and, on the other hand, the embryo-maternal interaction in vivo in different species such as cattle, horses, pigs and cats, sometimes as a model for human or wildlife. More clinical research is focused on the effects of neutering on long-term health in dogs and cats, semen banking in dogs, the genital microbiome in cats and dogs, and its relation to fertility. Prof. Van Soom has published more than 400 papers with an h-index of 47.

Her teaching and her clinical activities are related to small animal reproduction, with an emphasis on semen collection, (research on) gamete cryopreservation and artificial insemination in cats and dogs. Finally, she has been breeding English springer spaniels and Somali cats as a hobby.