About Me
Maarten van Aalst is 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), the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). He is full professor of Climate and Disaster Resilience at the University of Twente's Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), with several PhD students working on climate risk management across time and spatial scales.
Prof van Aalst is a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change and was Coordinating Lead Author at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6, AR5 and SREX). He is 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 in Climate and Disaster Resilience at 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. He acted as expert on various bodies of UNFCCC, UNDRR and the UN Secretary General’s climate team. Prof van Aalst holds a PhD in atmospheric physics and chemistry from Utrecht University and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz.
Expertise
Organisations
Ancillary Activities
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Climate Risk Management (Elsevier)
Editor-in-Chief -
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
Member of Board of Trustees -
IIED-Europe
Supervisory Board -
European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change
Member -
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Director-General and Chief Science Officer
Research
Publications
UT Research Information System
Google Scholar Link
Courses Academic Year 2023/2024
Courses Academic Year 2022/2023
Media
Internationally recognised expert on climate and disaster risk and resilience. Active in science, policy and practice, from early warning systems to global climate negotiations.
Director General of KNMI. Full professor in Climate and Disaster Resilience at ITC, University of Twente. Member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change.
Former director of the international Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Co-founder of the World Weather Attribution consortium.
Tweets
Contact Details
Visiting Address
University of Twente
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
Langezijds
(building no. 19), room Buliding Langezijds
Hallenweg 8
7522NH Enschede
The Netherlands
Mailing Address
University of Twente
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
Langezijds
Buliding Langezijds
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands