The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands
I am a seasoned climate change professional with a PhD and 15 years of experience in academia, government, and industry. My expertise revolves around managing carbon in nature and engineered products to leverage carbon market frameworks. I bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and practical applications, translating complex concepts into impactful policies, strategies, and highly investable carbon projects. Recently, I have specialized on the voluntary carbon market, focusing on developing high-quality nature-based projects that meet rigorous quality standards to enhance public trust and marketability of carbon credits. My understanding of the commercial and technical aspects of carbon projects makes me a valuable asset in the evolving carbon market. Previously, I co-developed a $250MM R&D program that created, matured, and deployed novel approaches and technologies in Nature-Based Solutions projects. This program advanced the field by deploying innovative methods to optimize carbon sequestration and improve the measurement of carbon dynamics in ecosystems. I am skilled in project management, with a track record of leading teams (internal and external) to deliver projects on time and exceed expectations. My ability to engage diverse stakeholders including academics, consultants, policymakers, and corporate leaders, drives the adoption of state-of-the-art technologies and scientific understanding. I excel at securing buy-in for my initiatives, evidenced by securing multimillion-dollar R&D programs, attracting VC investment into 4 technology companies, and leading 5 deals to develop new NBS projects. I am passionate about creating sustainable solutions that benefit society, the environment, and the economy. Specialties: Carbon and climate change thought leadership; soil carbon and GHG measurement and assessment; biogeochemical model design, development, calibration, and validation; deep technical understanding of VCM methodologies and registry processes; stakeholder engagement; translating scientific research into policy and corporate strategy; strong data analytic skills using R; data visualization; app creation; and project management. Career Goals: My ultimate goal is to help establish and implement a framework of climate-sensitive policy measures that stimulate effective triple bottom line accounting and ensure due diligence for companies to meet international sustainability standards. In the short term, I aim to promote corporate social responsibility and ensure compliance with national and international regulations.
- Lead technical aspects of developing a portfolio of nature-based carbon projects across Europe, the Middle East and Africa
The enABLE 'Employee Resource Group' at Shell aims to support and promote Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) through organizing events and learning sessions and trying to enable a more inclusive and accessible environment for Shell's employees. As Vice-President of the Technology Center chapter in Houston, I work alongside a team to: • Strengthen the leadership structure and set an example of passionate DEI leadership • Provide strategic vision and direction as part of the enABLE National Leadership Board • Plan and represent enABLE at a DEI Events to raise awareness, educate and increase membership
- Provide technical due diligence for nature-based carbon crediting projects (primarily non-forestry) on Verra, ACR, CAR and Gold Standard to ensure high quality standards and engage with external project developers/registries/service providers to enable efficient crediting. - Responsible for identifying and developing technology to support high-quality carbon crediting from Nature-based projects, primarily on voluntary carbon market registries. I work with Shell Ventures and Shell's NBS business units to evaluate external technology opportunities, primarily around measurement, monitoring, reporting and validation (MRV) and make decisions on investment or use in commercial carbon credit projects. - Lead several areas of R&D around technology development needed to scale NBS carbon projects, primarily in the agricultural and soil carbon space. I lead academic partnerships globally as well as $10M+ of research projects with various external counterparties.
Conventional soil organic matter (SOM) models represent stability through a series of conceptually defined pools; typically three pools of fast (<10 years), intermediate (10-100 years) and slow (>100 years) turnover times. These structures do not represent our mechanistic understanding of the processes that govern SOM formation and persistence. It was my job to conceptualise, build, parameterise, validate and publish a new SOM model that represents the current scientific consensus on SOM dynamics and stabilisation using model pools that can be validated with empirical data. The resulting model (MEMS v1.0) was built around the framework of the same name and evaluated against 8000+ forest and grassland sites in Europe. Soil carbon stocks were predicted accurately across a wide climatic and edaphic gradient.
Data from three long-term USDA agricultural research sites in Eastern Colorado were collated from over 1000 different sources before the data was used to assess soil carbon sequestration rates associated with different crop rotations and management practices. The empirical data was also used to parameterise and validate the DayCent model, which was then used to simulate multiple climate change scenarios up to 2100. The final outcomes of the project were used to provide key policy recommendations to USDA on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration in dryland cropping systems, in the context of climate change.
The project takes a ‘microbe to model’ approach to assess the environmental implications of planting the C4 bioenergy crop Miscanthus. Key deliverables of the project were to address the carbon sequestration potential of Miscanthus plantations, relative to conventional fossil fuel energy sources (coal and natural gas). After 36 months of consecutive data collection and considerable labwork, the process-based ecosystem models ECOSSE and DayCent were parameterised and validated to simulate the carbon cycling under Miscanthus at the measured site. The outcomes of this research were presented to both Shell and CEH as equal funders of the work, as well as a PhD thesis provided to Aberdeen University. The research findings aim to inform renewable energy policy around bioenergy and have resulted in three papers already published as well as one other in preparation.
A meta-analysis was performed using published data to quantify the impact land use change has upon soil carbon stocks. A global database was created identifying 9 different land-use transitions and assessing the effect of six discrete site variables. A small sub-set of this database was used to formulate my MSc Thesis.
I initiated and ran a new project within Shell to create a repository of information on Shell's intranet that allowed Shell staff to discover the status of Shell's used oil operations in each country. Individually I researched national legislation regarding used oil disposal and mapped the location of recycling facilities in each country. Fed from a central Access® database I created a series of Flash® websites to present this information. Upon completion I gave a number of presentations to managers within Shell and organised local presentations for employees of different departments to increase awareness.