New colleague Louise van der Stok joined ELS per May 2024

My name is Louise van der Stok, and I am going to coordinate the development of Living Labs for nature-based solutions within the eNaBLES project. Within this EU collaboration, a group of seven European universities will set up their own local Living Lab around nature-based solutions for biodiversity. I will be responsible for creating a Living Lab at WUR and supporting the partner universities.

I studied Forest and Nature conservation at Wageningen University and graduated on the topic of transformative learning for sustainability. I am very interested in the role of education in shaping, exploring and transforming human-nature relationships. Since 2019 I have been involved in the Droevendaal Food Forest on the Unifarm and worked with students on a diversity of educational activities. This inspired me to consider food forests as important nature-based solution for exploring human-nature relationships.

I am also involved in developing a teacher training on nature-inclusive teaching methods in collaboration with the Teaching and Learning Centre, and looking forward to creating and experimenting with nature-based teaching at WUR together with lecturers and students.