Keynote speakers

Maarten van Aalst is the Director General and Chief Science Officer of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and Permanent Representative of the Netherlands at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), ECMWF, and EUMETSAT. He is also a full professor of Climate and Disaster Resilience at the University of Twente. Prof van Aalst is a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change and a Trustee at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Before coming to KNMI in February 2023, Prof van Aalst was director of the International Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and held the Prinses Margriet Chair at the University of Twente's Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). He was also adjoint Senior Research Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University in New York, and worked on climate risk management with, among others, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, UNDP, and OECD. Prof van Aalst holds a PhD in atmospheric physics and chemistry from Utrecht University and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz.

Nathalie has worked over 25 years for the government of the Netherlands, in different positions and as a diplomat in South Africa, Hungary, the USA and Ambassador in Geneva. She is particularly experienced in connecting different fields of experience and knowledge and bringing people from these different fields together, for example development cooperation and trade, NGO’s and the private sector, political, economic and ecological root causes of conflict. Her passion and main compass is to look how developments can in the longer run remain sustainable, how ecological, political and economic systems can be changed to prevent new crises. Specific topics where she left her mark are: water & trade in South Africa, acsession to the EU in Hungary, sustaining supply chains of multinationals to improve the situation of small scale farmers, making the voice of refugees better heard and understood with more attention for mental heath and psychosocial support, humanitarian assistence in current crises and Grand Bargain. Nathalie has 10 years of management experience, her style of leadership is inclusive and communicative. She has been the driving force behind (cultural) changes and is characterized as a ‘compassionate manager’. She is commended for her way to bring difficult issues up for discussion, as well as for the engaging way in which she moderates events and gives lectures, getting attendees to participate. Recently, Nathalie was the program director for the 2023 UN Waterconference, which was held in March and led to the adoption of the Water Action Agenda, with over 800 commitments. Currently, Nathalie is the director for Stabilization and Humanitarian Aid.

Sherwan Qasem is a humanitarian worker with extensive experience in program management and emergency response. He is originally from Syria and holds an MA in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Sherwan began his humanitarian career in 2012 as a translator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Turkey and North Syria and quickly moved to project management. During his time at MSF, Sherwan oversaw the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of numerous programs, gaining invaluable insights into the intricacies of managing complex humanitarian operations. Since relocating to the Netherlands, his new home in 2017, Sherwan has continued his dedicated work at the MSF Amsterdam operation center, supporting missions managed by the Emergency Support Department (ESD) across a diverse range of regions, including Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Venezuela, Ukraine, Lithuania, and the Netherlands. Sherwan is a passionate advocate for strengthening the capacity of local staff and organizations in disaster planning, response, and recovery. He believes in empowering communities and promoting community-based activities to build resilience at the grassroots level.

Lotte Jensen is Professor of Dutch Cultural and Literary History at Radboud University Nijmegen. and Principal Investigator of the project Dealing with Disasters. The shaping of local and national identities in the Netherlands (1421-1890), for which she was awarded a VICI grant by NWO, and which investigates the impact of natural disasters on Dutch local and national identities from a cultural-historical perspective. She is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). She also conducts research in the project Heritages of Hunger about the cultural legacies of famines in Europe and is member of the Adapt Academy, an interdisciplinary team of researchers who are working together to gather more knowledge and expertise on the adaptive capacity of societies in times of crisis. Recent publications are Wij en het Water. Een Nederlandse Geschiedenis (about floods in the Netherlands) and Dealing with Disasters from Early Modern to Modern Times. Cultural Responses to Catastrophes. In the spring of 2024 her history on catastrophes in the Netherlands will be published: Rampen. Een nieuwe geschiedenis van Nederland.

Professor Karin Pfeffer is a geographer, currently holding the chair in Infrastructuring Urban Futures at the Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management department within the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation. Before her appointment at ITC in 2017, she served in various roles at the Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. These roles included positions from a postdoctoral researcher to an Associate Professor. She obtained her PhD in Physical Geography from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Jacquleen Joseph is Professor and Dean at the Jamsetji Tata School of Disaster Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, India. As a Mental Health Professional and Researcher from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), India, her research, field action and teaching centre around Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in the disaster and humanitarian contexts. She is actively engaged in field action and research in several disasters, starting with Tsunami 2004 to that of the 2015 Nepal Earthquake, COVID-19 pandemic and Balasore Train Disaster 2023. Some of the recent research and mobility grants in her areas of research interest are the Disaster Resilience Leadership Research and Fellowship Programme (BMG research grants), Transboundary Water Governance and Capacity Building for Civic Engagement (ICIMOD – HUC Research Networking Grant), Disaster Risk Creation in Urban Resettlement Processes (Independent Research Fund Denmark), HELSUS Mobility Grants (University of Helsinki), and Reconceptualizing Urban Risk (SMUS), among others. Published two international books on Disaster Resilience Leadership and Centrifugal Disasters and several other pertinent journal articles and book chapters on disasters from the global south.

As coordinator of KUNO, the Platform for Humanitarian Knowledge Exchange in the Netherlands, Peter Heintze is responsible for the Platform’s joint learning programs, reflection processes, and training. KUNO has the support of 14 international humanitarian NGOs based in the Netherlands, six Dutch Knowledge Institutes, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Peter often describes KUNO as a Think Space: a safe location where humanitarian professionals delve into the nature and challenges of their profession. In moments of adversity, humanitarian practitioners, policymakers, and academics find it crucial to convene and explore avenues for improving their efforts, whether it's saving more lives or minimizing harm. Sometimes, these discussions can be uncomfortable, but they often prove necessary. After obtaining a master’s degree in the History of International Development from the University of Utrecht, Peter dedicated 15 years to journalism for Dutch national radio. He notably served as a radio reporter for the VARA (Radio 1) and took on the role of editor-in-chief for the daily news program Met Het Oog Op Morgen (NOS – Radio 1). Following this journalistic chapter, he assumed directorship of the political NGO Evert Vermeer Stichting. Peter's leadership saw the birth of the advocacy platform Fair Politics, and he transformed the annual Afrikadag into an engaging event, attracting up to 2,500 participants from diverse sectors to debate pressing development concerns. More recently, he helmed the research department of the Dutch Institute for Global Citizenship (NCDO). Since KUNO's inception in 2017, Peter Heintze has steered it as its coordinator. In this capacity, he collaborates closely with practitioners, policymakers, and academics from the humanitarian domain. Under his guidance, KUNO fosters open dialogues and reflections on myriad topics, all tethered to humanitarian practices.