Team
Find out more about the CiFoS team below
Project leader
Hannah van Zanten
“A transformation of our food system is required to safeguard our planet for future generations”
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Dr. Hannah van Zanten is the project leader of the circular food systems project. She is Associate Professor at the Wageningen University Farming Systems Ecology group. It is her ambition to unravel how circular food systems can contribute to producing healthy foods for a growing population within the carrying capacity of the Earth. Hannah graduated cum laude from Wageningen University in 2009 with a master’s degree in Animal Sciences. Her PhD project focused on the environmental benefits of using human-inedible-sources as livestock feed. Since graduating, again cum laude, for her PhD, she continued to work in this research-area with the Animal Production Systems group, and later with the Farming Systems Ecology group. She recently was awarded the NWO Talent Scheme grant (VENI) in which she aims to assess the role of animals in a circular food system. Her research shows that farm animals reared under a circular paradigm can play a crucial role in feeding humanity, while reducing the environmental impact.
Expertise: Circular food systems, environment, livestock, healthy diets, feed-food
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Documents
(Publication) HHE van Zanten, Van Ittersum MK, De Boer IJM (2019). The role of farm animals in a circular food system. Global Food Security 21, 18–22.
(Publication) HHE Van Zanten, Herrero M, Van Hal O, Röös E, Muller A, Garnett T, Gerber PJ, Schader C, De Boer IJM (2018). Defining a land boundary for sustainable livestock consumption. Global Change Biology 24, 4185-4194.
(Publication) Parodi A, Leip A, De Boer IJM, Slegers PM, Ziegler F, Temme EHM, Herrero M, Tuomisto H, Valin H, Van Middelaar CE, Van Loon JJA, Van Zanten HHE (2018). The potential of future foods for sustainable and healthy diets. Nature Sustainability 1, 782–789.
(Publication) Van Zanten HHE, Mollenhorst H, Klootwijk CW, Van Middelaar CE, De Boer IJM (2016). Global food supply: land use efficiency of livestock systems. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 21, 747–758.
(Publication) Van Zanten HHE, Mollenhorst H, Oonincx DGAB, Bikker P, Meerburg BG, De Boer IJM (2015). From environmental nuisance to environmental opportunity: housefly larvae convert waste to livestock feed. Journal of Cleaner Production 102, 362-369.
Postdoc
Anita Frehner
”We need collaboration and creativity to redesign our food systems.
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Anita is a postdoctoral researcher at the Wageningen University and Research Farming Systems Ecology group and at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland (FiBL). She graduated from the University of Bern in Switzerland with a BSc in Economics and an MSc in Climate Sciences with a special qualification in Economics. In her MSc programme, Anita focused on the potential of climate service for smallholder farmers in Peru, in collaboration with MeteoSwiss and SENAMHI. Following her interest in research on sustainable practices on the nexus of agriculture, human consumption, and the environment, she started her PhD in 2017 titled ‘Towards sustainable diets: the role of animal-source food in a planet-friendly and healthy diet’. Anita's postdoc works focuses on modelling global circular food systems and its environmental impacts.
Expertise: Environmental Modelling, Environmental Impact Assessment, Agricultural Economics, Climate Change Economics
Postdoc
Marijke Schop
“Eager to explore the potential of animal production around the world”
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Marijke is a postdoctoral researcher at the Animal Production Systems group. After graduating with BSc (2012) and MSc (2014) degrees in Animal Sciences from Wageningen University, she continued as a PhD candidate at the Wageningen University & Research Animal Nutrition Group. Marijke received her PhD in January 2020, for which she studied the kinetics of nutrient digestion in pigs using in vitro, in vivo, and in silico methods. Her current postdoctoral research focuses on the potential production strategies (including feeding and breeding) of animals within circular food systems and their environmental impact.
Expertise: Nutrition, digestion, dynamic modelling, pigs, monogastrics
Links:
Documents
(PhD thesis) Schop M, Modelling digestion kinetics in pigs – predicting nutrient absorption based on diet and ingredient properties.
(Publication) Schop M, Jansman AJM, de Vries S, Gerrits WJJ (2019). Increasing intake of dietary soluble nutrients affects digesta passage rate in the stomach of growing pigs. British Journal of Nutrition 121, 529-537.
PhD candidate
Felipe Cozim Melges
“Biodiversity is an insurance policy to maintain sustainable food systems”
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Felipe has started his PhD in 2020 at the Wageningen University and Research Farming Systems Ecology group in collaboration with the Netherlands institute of Ecology. His research focusses on securing biodiversity within circular food systems.
Felipe was born in Brazil, where he graduated at the University of Oswaldo Cruz as an Environmental Engineer in 2014. In 2017, he started the Joint International Master in Sustainable Development at the University of Leipzig, Germany. His MSc thesis focussed on the trade-offs between agriculture economy, food security and biodiversity. Felipe’s specialisation semesters was carried out in Environmental Change and Ecosystems in Universiteit Utrecht in the Netherlands. In 2018, Felipe started working as a research assistant at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, where he focuses on the impact of land-use change on biodiversity.
Expertise: Land use change, modelling, biodiversity, food systems, environment
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PhD candidate
Wolfram Simon
“Using the power of global food system modelling to bring evidence-based knowledge about the complexity of circular food system.”
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Wolfram has started his PhD in 2020 at the Wageningen University and Research Farming Systems Ecology group in collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia. His research focuses on the potential of a circular food system on the effect of Nr and P biogeochemical cycles on a national and global scale.
He comes originally from Switzerland where, before starting his academic career, he did a two-year apprenticeship as an organic farmer. He graduated from the University of Kassel in Germany with a BSc on ‘sustainable agriculture’, focusing on alternative protein sources and edible insects. He was awarded the Helmut Claas Scholarship and the Haecker prize for his bachelor thesis, and graduated with honours. In his MSc program at Wageningen University, he focussed on assessing sustainable and climate-smart agricultural systems, and on ecological agroecosystem modelling.
Expertise: Crops, optimization modelling, nutrient flows, global food systems
PhD candidate
Renée Cardinaals
“Excited to understand the diverse ways in which animals can play a role in our global pathway to a healthy food system.”
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Renée is a PhD candidate at the Wageningen University and Research Farming Systems Ecology group. She graduated from Wageningen University in October 2020, with an MSc in Organic Agriculture. She holds a BSc degree in Animal Sciences and specialized in animal production systems during the MSc phase. Renée fulfilled both her internship and thesis at the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL) in Switzerland. She developed an interest for environmental systems modeling and decided to continue her career at Wageningen University where she started her PhD in 2021. Her focus is on the contribution of animal products to a global, sustainable diet and their link to environmental impacts. Her aim is to include nutritional quality of animal products into the equation to account for the differences in composition between animal and plant products.
Expertise: Environmental Modelling, Environmental Impact Assessment, Global livestock systems
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PhD candidate
Ben van Selm
“Applying food system models to fully understand the environmental implications of circularity"
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Ben is a PhD candidate at the Wageningen University and Research Animal Production System group and Plant Production Systems group in the Netherlands. The aim of his project is to model the environmental consequences of different circular food system scenarios in the Netherlands where nutrient cycles are closed at different spatial scales (i.e. nationally, with Europe, or globally).
Ben received his BSc in Animal Husbandry (2017) from Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences and his MSc in Animal Science (2019) from Wageningen University & Research, specialising in global and sustainable production. In his MSc programme, Ben focussed on integrating healthy and environmentally sustainable diets into circular food systems for which he had already developed and used the CiFoS model. Following this interested in modelling circular food systems in the Netherlands, his PhD was a logical next step.
Expertise: environmental modelling, environmental impact assessment, circular food systems, animal production
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