I am a lecturer on the topic of urban sustainability and green infrastructure and how it increases resilience against natural hazards. I work at the Construction Management and Engineering (CME) research group of the University Twente, and I am part of the Scientists 4 Future.
I am an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, actively creating a more sustainable world. After the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, I began my PhD in disaster management focusing on flood measures for vulnerable people from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Japan. Subsequently I worked on developing water disaster indicators and optimizing a microgrid with solar panels and a storage battery.
Throughout my studies on vulnerability and sustainability, I have learned that to be truly sustainable a person or system ideally is also resilient. Planning ahead and sharing resources and knowledge are key requirements for disaster preparation, and I find this shares many aspects with responsible futuring for sustainability. This is the message I am promoting in the courses I develop and teach. For research, I am currently examining how we can quantify the effects of green infrastructure on the overall goal of sustainable water and energy resource management. I am also part of a team developing measures to integrate sustainability in all our education at the UT, and motivating people to take action in their daily lives.
I am genderqueer/nonbinary (they/them).