‘Faces of Science’ is an initiative of KNAW (The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) aiming to inspire young people to pursue a career in sciences. The project involves a few dozen PhD researchers from various Dutch universities, but there wasn’t any UT scientists among them until now.
‘I was nominated for the Faces of Science by my supervisor Tatiana Filatova. I believe this was mainly thanks to my enthusiasm for science,’ says Koen de Koning, who is conducting his doctoral research in the CSTM department of BMS Faculty. ‘My main task now is to write blogs about my daily life as a scientist and hopefully reach young people, especially high school students who are still deciding about their studies and career.’
In his blogs, the UT researcher mainly wants to show why he decided to become a scientist and that it’s not always necessary for young students to worry about the field they want to end up in. ‘High school students often have to pick their studies very early on, but I’m doing my PhD in a completely different field than I studied,’ points out De Koning. ‘I want to show them that they don’t have to feel the pressure. There are many ways to redirect your career path later on.’
De Koning, who used to study Forest and Nature Conservation, is now doing research into the influence of flooding and climate change on decisions on the housing market. ‘I’m making a mathematical model of the housing market, basically trying to predict how people will respond to flood risks. I’m mainly interested in the methodology, in translating human behavior into mathematical models. In the future, I’d like to apply this to wildlife conservation, help to save wild animals such as rhinos or elephants from poachers.’
