I am employed as a PhD Candidate in the Environmental Economics department of the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM). If I am not working, I like to spend my time doing a variety of sports, playing guitar in a band, and travelling.

Broadly, the focus of my thesis is to assess the impact of climate change on flood insurance in the EU. More specifically, I use modelling techniques to combine flood risk projections with insurance models and behavioural simulations, to estimate the impact of changing flood risk on unaffordability of premiums and demand for insurance. I also assess which policy changes can increase the ability of insurance to cope with climate change. For example, insurance can potentially stimulate risk-reduction effort of households, which reduces the overall societal vulnerability to flood risk. The most important skills that I acquired for my thesis-related work are economic and environmental modelling, which include the simulation of flood risk, the insurance sector, as well as individuals’ behaviour concerning risk.

Besides working on my thesis, a large share of my worktime is spent teaching. I am responsible for organizing and executing the practicums of the courses Water Economics and Measurement Techniques in Hydrology for the master programme Hydrology. These are yearly recurring courses, which I have taught now for three years. Practicums cover topics such as basic concepts in economics, such as supply and demand, cost-benefit analysis, econometrics and ecosystem valuation. Besides teaching practicums, I have experience in thesis supervision of students.

Working on my PhD thesis is largely solitary, except for the cooperation with supervisors and co-authors. However, I am involved in several collaborative research projects; COACCH; RECEIPT; and DG-CLIMA, all of which are funded by the EU. Through these projects, I have gained experience in collaborating and producing scientific output with researchers from other institutes and nationalities. Contributing to these projects also forced me to produce clear and concise policy assessments, as the research is funded by- and largely directed at EU policy-making institutions.

Expertise

Climate change, flood insurance, flood risk.

2017: MSc Economic Policy at Utrecht University School of Economics.

2015: BA in Economics at Amsterdam University College.

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