As an Educator at Breakwell Learning Center my aims are (1) to help young people acquire skills and capabilities in local food production and inspire them for a future in the noble field of agriculture and (2) to raise-up local protagonist who are able to contribute to building vibrant communities around urban gardens.

For every pest species there are at least twenty natural enemies. How to employ this biodiversity for integrated crop protection? And how to monitor pests and natural enemies so that a farmer knows he or she can rely on natural pest control? These are some of questions that I want to address.

Connected to the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Programm (JYSEP) I am supporting educational programs for children, junior youth and youth in a neighborhood setting.

PhD thesis “Quantifying and simulating movement of the predator carabid beetle Pterostichus melanarius in arable land” Promoter: Prof. Dr J.C. van van Lenteren (WUR), Co-promoters: Dr. W.A.H. Rossing (WUR), Dr. W. van der Werf (WUR).At the Farming Systems Ecology group & the Laboratory of Entomology (Wageningen University) I studied movement of the common predator carabid beetle Pterostichus melanarius in relation to habitat heterogeneity, habitat edges, hunger level, food availability and light conditions used for night observations. Techniques I used include movement tracking with cameras in 5 m2 arenas and mass mark-recapture in field experiments of various spatial extent. I combined data on displacement distances to diffusion models for population spread and I linked observations on movement behaviour in arenas to rate of population spread measured in the field. I calibrated my models to the field data using maximum likelihood and used model selection for hypothesis testing. In addition to the empirical and theoretical work I performed a meta-analysis on movement rate of carabids using a linear mixed model.

Two month traineeship teaching biology to first grade students as part of the SprintUP program for PhD candidates.