Michelle van Vliet

Prof. Dr. Michelle van Vliet is full professor of the chair Water Quality and Sustainable Water Systems at Utrecht University. She focuses with her team on the key challenge of ensuring sufficient water of suitable quality for meeting human demands and healthy ecosystems in the face of climate and socio-economic changes. She contributes to this by studying the complex interactions between water resources quality, availability, and use by sectoral sectors, including energy and agricultural production. She completed her doctoral research with distinction in 2012 at Wageningen University, resulting in several high-profile publications and the National Award for Best PhD Thesis in Environmental Sciences. She was awarded a Niels Stensen Fellowship, which allowed her to explore the vulnerability of thermoelectric power and hydropower sectors to climate change at IIASA and Princeton University. This work garnered significant media attention and established her international reputation. She has secured a permanent position and established her own research group at Utrecht University. She was awarded several prestigious personal grants (e.g., VENI, VIDI, and Aspasia grants from the Dutch Research Council). In 2022, she received an ERC starting grant from the European Research Council to study the complex interplay of clean water and energy systems under changing climate and extremes. 

Prof. Dr. van Vliet has been invited by several institutions, including the European Commission and the World Bank, to share her insights on clean water scarcity and energy impacts. She is author of more than 90 scientific articles including several high-profile publications as lead author. She was a contributing author of the latest IPCC AR6 report WGII. In addition, Prof. Van Vliet is Scientific Co-chair of UNESCO WMO Water Committee of the Netherlands and serves several committees and advisory boards for the Ministry of Water in the Netherlands. She is Co-Editor in Chief of the scientific journal Environmental Research: Water and is member of the editorial and advisory board of the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters. Her dynamic and diverse research group of PhD and postdoctoral researchers is shaping the future of clean water research.