Research Expertise

I am an associate professor of Urban Development Management (UDM), at the department of Management in the Built Environment (MBE) at Delft University of Technology. My research expertise lies in “sustainable private sector-led urban development projects” with a specialisation in public-private partnerships and real estate development. I am fascinated by the role private sector actors (real estate developers, investors, corporations and entrepreneurs) increasingly perform in making real estate, urban places and cities more sustainable. Within this research field, I have wide experience in conducting international comparative research (mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries, UK, US, AUS, CAN, HK), contributing to European research projects, and executing professional research for Dutch Ministeries, municipalities, and companies.

In more depth, I foremost aim to create knowledge about private actor (strategic and operational) decision-making logics for developing and investing in sustainable urban (re)development and place management practices and projects. In relation to this, I aim to explore how public and societal actors can effectively institutionalise and influence sustainable market decision-making. As a result, based on such changeable actor-specific insights, I intend to developing and test innovative and effective partnership and collaboration forms and instruments, which support the co-creation and implementation of sustainable urban development projects.

Currently I am participating in the NWO-funded "TranCiBo" project investigating transitional inter-organisational change towards circular construction practices. Moreover, I coordinate the knowledge partner exchange efforts from TU Delft (MBE department) for the Dutch "Stedelijke Transformatie" program, aimed at developing process innovations for urban transformation projects. In addition, I am the project coordinator for an EU-funded project "POPS (privately-owned public spaces) for Youth", led by a post-doc Marie-Sklodowska Curie research fellow.