Meet the 2023 Speakers
Tradition in Transition
Victoria McKenzie
Academic-Activist, Research architect, writer and artist grounded in the act of reframing what it means to live as a communal society on and with Earth. She runs an architectural-research agency called ‘RRA’ Radical Research & Re-storying Agency which is informed by the question: “how can the pre-colonial past inform a decolonial future?”.
Victoria is currently based in The Netherlands where she teaches at various institutions such as the Sandberg Institute and Avans University on the connection between art, design and ecology to demonstrate the ways in which building, being and communing are continuously aligned.
Ties
van der Hoeven
Creative Director and Co-founder of The Weather Makers, an engineering company based in the Netherlands, that applies a holistic approach to ecological restoration. After working on several big construction projects, his interest shifted to working with nature and implementing a pro-active adaptive engineering approach. The primary goal of The Weather Makers is to initiate an ecological regeneration project in Sinai, Egypt. Their approach aims to restore the local water cycle in Sinai, spanning from the coast to the continental divide.
Pieter
van der Gaag
Long time passionate participant in the global sustainability movement. Currently director of a foundation set up to support the global Ecosystem Restoration Communities movement. Former owner of sustainable consumer goods retail platform Next Way of Living. Chair of initiatives in the Netherlands that further socially responsible entrepreneurship in the natural stone sector, the pension fund industry and the financial sector as whole.
Katrien
Termeer
Professor of governance of transformative change in food systems at Wageningen University. Fascinated by sustainability interventions that embrace complexity, do not disqualify people, and energize a variety of stakeholders instead of paralyzing them. (Co)authored over 300 scientific articles and serves in various policy advisory boards, like the Dutch Social and Economic Council.
Heitor
Mancini Teixeira
Heitor is an interdisciplinary researcher with more than 12 years of experience working with multiple stakeholders for the analysis, design and implementation of sustainable and multi-functional agroecosystems. The main focus of his research is biodiversity, ecosystem services, agroecology, agroforestry systems, soil functions and secondary forest succession. He works to connect science with practice, extension and education, with the use of participatory and innovative methodologies.
He has practical experience with soil sampling and analysis, biodiversity assessments, interviews, participatory methodologies, assessment of stakeholders perceptions, project management and event organisation.
Esha Shah
Writer and academic, who is Environmental Engineer turned anthropologist and philosopher of science and technology. As a scholar, she has worked with Sussex University, Maastricht University and Wageningen University, and awarded Fellow’s position with the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies and Institut d'Études Avancées de Nantes. Her recent book (Routledge, 2018) on affective histories of the gene looks at the way scientist’s subjectivity relates to objective science.
Cristina Biddlecome
Third-culture-kid, dove into the Wageningen melting pot five years ago to study sustainable food systems. Coordinator of Otherwise, a foundation working with WUR students, faculty, and unusual collaborations across the Netherlands to stimulate discussion about social and environmental justice. Experiments with creative educational methods in university spaces to collectively chew on the radical. Admirer and advocate of slime molds and slugs.
BIRGIT BOOGAARD
Award-winning teacher at the Knowledge Technology and Innovation group of Wageningen University. National Teacher of the Year 2023 for higher education in the Netherlands. She teaches courses on African philosophy, and Social Justice, Technology and Development. Birgit’s teaching is known for her dialogical and transformative methods and hand-made illustrations. The inclusion of historically oppressed knowledge is central in her research and teaching. Therefore, she collaborates closely with African scholars.
ANNA KOOI
Amsterdam-based food sociologist, chef and pickle maker. Her action-oriented multidisciplinary research intersects scholarship and gastronomy with participatory- and performance art. Since 2019, she has collaborated with Cascoland, Wageningen University, Food Forest Ketelbroek, Colaboratory Kitchen and Taste Before You Waste. Anna is currently working on methods to document embodied knowledge of elderly farmers.