LA (Lieke) Melsen, PhD MSc

I work as associate professor in the Hydrology and Environmental Hydraulics group, focusing on Computational Hydrology - particularly the politics and sociology of modelling. My work explores how models, and their results, are shaped by, and in turn shape, their social, political, and ethical contexts. I am also interested in quality assurance and transparency in modelling practices.

Questions I study include; How are models selected and legitimized to support decision-making? Which knowledge is considered valid to include in models? How do models naturalize certain ways of understanding?  I make use of methods ranging from sensitivity analysis to interviews and bibliometrics. 

I am involved in the courses 'Water and Air Flow: Numerical Techniques', 'Catchment Hydrology', and 'Advanced Hydrological System Analysis', most of them part of the MSc program 'Earth and Environment'.