Looking back at the 4TU.Energy PhD Course - November 2024

I am a sustainability transition scholar with over 20 years international experience. I contribute to theory development on: socio-technical system innovation, governance, sustainable development and innovation. I study novel ways of organising systems through new market models (e.g. P2P) and new institutional arrangements. In that work I unpack upscaling, experimentation by communities, co-creation and new business models.

My empirical domains are (smart) energy and mobility, and I sympathise with cities’ agendas. I study renewables and new, multi-system technologies such as blockchain. I use transitions as my home discipline from where I take trans-disciplinary ‘detours’ to other fields. Being driven by the urgent need to act on sustainability, I regularly engage with practical contexts. 

My research is funded by NWO, EU, APN, NRC, DFG and Dutch Ministries. I was a project leader of a € 7.1M Interreg NWE project on community-based Virtual Power Plant (cVPP). I also lead an NWO-funded ORAKLE project on organising learning and knowledge for energy transition in the Province of North Brabant. From 2021 I have been appointed the TU/e Sustainability Ambassador. 

Phil Vardon is the professor of Energy Geo-mechanics at TU Delft. He leads work on a variety of geothermal systems and works himself primarily on subsurface processes. His most exciting project is turning the TU Delft campus into a subsurface urban energy laboratory – so that research can be done on working thermal energy system.

Queena K QIAN is an Associate Professor (tenured) at the Department of Management in Built Environment, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), the Netherlands. Prior to this appointment, she was employed as Research Assistant Professor at Building and Real Estate Dept., the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK PolyU). She received her PhD, entitled “Barriers to Promote Building Energy Efficiency- A Transaction Costs Perspective,” at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2012, which was awarded the Best Thesis Award by the Faculty of Construction and Environment, the only awardee from the department of BRE for year 2012 PhD graduates.

She has received prestigious awards from different countries, e.g., Delft Technology Fellow (2014) at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, a five-year tenure-track assistant professorship awarded by Delft University of Technology, Netherlands as one of the nine top worldwide recognized woman scientists in 2019. She was also awarded an Endeavour Australian Cheung Kong Fellow (2013) at the University of South Australia, Australia. As a Fulbright scholarship recipient (2010), she has worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at UC Berkeley where she worked with top scientist dr. Mark Levine and dr. Nan Zhou, and with Prof. Douglass North (1993 Nobel Laureate economist) and Prof. Lee Benham at Washington University in St Louis, USA.

Her research interests are energy transition in general, building energy efficiency, building energy retrofit, urban renewal, age-friendly design, green building promotion, aging in place & age friendly, governance and incentive schemes, etc., using transaction costs theory, behavour economics and behavioural science approach. Since 2015, she has served as managing editor and Editor-in-Chief (since 2022) of the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment. In 2018, her work on institutional and behavioral economics approaches for sustainable behaviour in energy transition was recognized as an Honorary Fellow at The University of Hong Kong Ronald Coase Centre for Property Rights Research (RCCPRR). 

Nowella Anyango-van Zwieten works as a researcher at the Public Administration and Policy Group of Wageningen University. She recently moved to this position from a lectureship position at the same university.

Nowella is well embedded in science-policy-society networks in the Netherlands and has a passion for conducting global-local research. She is a core member of the 4TU Energy Access alliance. The alliance focusses on energy access and transition in Low- and Middle-Income Country contexts. Through this alliance she is also an active member of the Dutch NL Energy Compact hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is a collaboration between government-industry-academia-NGOs and others aiming to provide 100 million people with sustainable energy by 2030. In addition,

Nowella has more than 10 years’ working experience in various sectors in East Africa, a PhD in the environmental sociology of conservation finance, an MSc in Tourism studies and a BSc in Business Management. She was a 2022 Embassy Science Fellow, an NWO fellowship that gives researchers the opportunity to gain experience in the diplomatic world by being embedded in a Dutch embassy abroad, where they contribute their expertise in informing Dutch foreign policy.

Wouter van den Akker holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from TU Eindhoven and has built a career at the intersection of technology, business, and regulation in the electrical sector. He began his career in R&D at global switchgear manufacturer Eaton, where he rose to become EU Technology Manager.

In 2008, Wouter joined the Dutch TSO TenneT, taking on roles in building condition-based maintenance and investment policies for the on- and offshore grid investments. Since 2018, he has been with Alliander, where he initially led an innovation portfolio focused on the energy transition, including the system integration of hydrogen and the use of flexibility in the energy system.

As leading strategist in Alliander’s corporate strategy team, he now is responsible for shaping Alliander’s vision on the future energy system. In addition, Wouter is affiliated with the Electrical Energy Systems group at TU Eindhoven, where he develops research projects and supervises PhD candidates and students.

As program developer Urban Energy, Paul is responsible for exploring, initiating and developing relevant energy projects in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. He connects the energy transition challenges of the region to innovation practices, competencies, and projects, to find insights and solutions that create a real added value for the city and its people.

The aim is to create insights and solutions that can help citizens, policymakers, and entrepreneurs, make better (investment) policy or decisions and inspire new businesses and products. In doing so, we strive to bring solutions to those challenge owners that have a hard time sleeping until the challenge is solved.

Prior to AMS Institute, Paul worked with AMS Institute’s collaboration partner Amsterdam Smart City (ASC). AMS Institute and ASC are strongly connected and share a strong belief that collaboration on the urban challenges is key and needs great care when aiming for impact.

Gerwin Hoogsteen is an assistant professor in the field of smart grids within the Mathematics of Operations Research and Computer Architecture for Embedded Systems chairs, with a focus on applying theoretical research in field-tests. His research interest is in energy management for smart grids, and in particular where it concerns multi-disciplinary research and cyber-physical systems. Current research directions include distributed coordination and cyber-security of smart grids. He is member of the Young Academy Twente and is the founder and maintainer of the DEMKit and ALPG software.

Nataly Bañol Arias is an assistant professor in the field of Power Systems within the Power Electronics Group. Her work focuses on modeling and optimization of smart distribution grids and microgrids. Her research interests include energy management and control of inverter-based resources (IBRs) for seamless grid integration and support. Current research directions include co-simulation of power systems and power electronics, interoperability of IBRs, and real-time hardware-in-the-loop applications for smart grids.

Akbar Asadi is an assistant professor in Wageningen University, with research focusing on membrane technology, membrane synthesis, thermodynamics of polymer solutions and process modelling. These membranes have application in energy (hydrogen production and separation), health (dialysis) and sustainability (chemical production and wastewater treatment).

Annemiek Bles is program manager Energy at Brainport Development. This is the economic development agency for the Brainport Eindhoven region. Here she focuses on scaling innovations from the region, by developing public-private partnerships. Due the grid congestion in the Brainport region, a problem occurring in a large part of the Netherlands, she focuses a most of her time on energy hubs. This is a new way to manage the grid on a local level. Many new innovations are necessary to develop such hubs. Annemiek supports the implementation of these energy hubs.

Iman Pishbin is an experienced professional specializing in the energy sector and energy transition by having more than 20 years of working experience, with a particular focus on renewable gases such as hydrogen and green gas.

He currently works as a Network Strategist in the Asset Management department at Stedin, one of the third main gas and electricity grid operators in the Netherlands. Iman contributes to long-term strategic energy system planning, focusing on the integration of renewable gases into existing energy infrastructures. He also serves as the thematic lead for green gas and the digitalization of the gas grid at Stedin.

Iman holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, with his dissertation centered on developing an innovative swirl gas burner to improve flame stability through the admixture of hydrogen with natural gas. He is actively engaged at regional, national, and international levels in promoting the application of sustainable gases.

He is the project lead and EPIC owner for the National Green Gas Capacity Map by EDSN (Energy Data Services Nederland company) and also leads several research projects in the Hydelta consortium, focusing on the transition of gas distribution networks to hydrogen systems. 

David Smeulders holds an MSc in Aerospace Engineering from Delft University of Technology and a PhD in Applied Physics from Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands. Between 1992 and 2010 he was assistant/associate professor at the Civil Engineering and Geosciences Department at Delft University of Technology, where he was also scientific director of the Geotechnology Laboratory (2007-2010).

In 2010 he was appointed full professor at the Mechanical Engineering Department at Eindhoven University of Technology, where he chairs the Energy Technology group. He is (co)-author of more than 200 scientific publications and member of the Dutch national ‘topsector’ board TKI New Gas, Scientific Director of the 4TU Energy Centre and member of the NWO DeepNL research program committee. He was member of the sounding board to the parliamentary enquiry of the Groningen gas field.

His expertise is in energy storage and conversion, transport in porous media, and flow-induced vibrations.