I am an assistant professor at the Natural Resource Department, ITC, University of Twente. I am by training a geographer and my research focuses on applying geospatial analysis and modeling approaches to study land use change and food systems in the context of global change. A main part of my research portfolio is using novel geo-simulation (e.g., agent-based model, optimization land use model) as a hub, facilitated by spatio-temporal analysis to simulate different human agents (e.g., smallholder farmers, supply-chain actors, government officials) interacting with different environments (e.g., the fast-changing Amazon delta, Brazilian savannah–Cerrado, different bioclimatic regions of Europe). Hence, in my department NRS/ITC, I will be teaching Spatial Engineering programs and courses with a focus on spatial modeling and food security.
I will also be mentoring master and PhD students who are keen on agent-based and spatial models, land use change, and food systems, under the overarching goal of identifying sustainable solutions for urgent social and ecological issues, such as how to effectively reduce deforestation, enhance biodiversity accounting for land management, and safeguard food security and livelihood. I hope to help students use land use change as a means to ask and answer interdisciplinary questions related to the cross-scale and cross-boundary drivers, responses, and feedback between various food systems, utilizing theories of geography, ecology, and complex sciences.
I received my PhD degree from University of Waterloo, Canada. Before joining ITC, I worked as a postdoc researcher at Michigan State University on Telecoupling project and IVM Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on FutureWeb. Currently, I am involved in the DeSIRE program in the 4TU Resilience Engineering Centre. While mostly embedded in the agri/food system thematic group, DeSIRE program is an excellent platform for me to continue my interdisciplinary collaboration and to seek for resilient solutions for the grand food security, biodiversity, and climate change challenges.
I was a tenure-track researcher in the 4TU.DeSIRE programme.