Meine van Noordwijk

Trained as ecologist (in Utrecht University) my first deep dive in the tropics was when I worked as lecturer botany/ecology at Juba University (S Sudan). Having explored the theory and practice of plant-soil interactions in soil fertility research at root level (at a Dutch research institute) for my PhD (at Wageningen University), I have worked for thirty years on the opportunities and challenges of agroforestry research, on the agriculture-forestry interface in tropical forest margins. Since 1993 I have worked for ICRAF (World Agroforestry) in Indonesia, and in global science management and advisory roles. My research has crossed many scale and disciplinary boundaries, in support of land use that is both productive and efficient, aligned with our planetary boundaries. I developed mathematical process-based models of plant architecture, tree-soil-crop interactions, land use in dynamic landscape mosaics, and the water balance impacts of agroforestry. For an up-to-date list of publications see https://scholar.google.nl/citations?user=CyTMe1IAAAAJ&hl=en; h-index 100+. At Wageningen University I'm co-leading a program with PhD students developing 'serious games' for the forest-water-people nexus (models are games, games are models). The last decade I have been part of, and co-leading a number of global syntheses (IUFRO: Forest/water, IPBES: Values and decisions) and stocktaking of agroforestry research into its fifth decade.