Stefan Ligtenberg, PhD

Dr. Stefan Ligtenberg is the managing director of Weather Impact.

Stefan graduated in 2009 at Wageningen University in Meteorology and Air Quality. He finished his PhD in 2014 on the field of polar meteorology at Utrecht University. Subsequently he started two postdoctoral positions at Utrecht University, for the last he received an NWO VENI scholarship.

At Weather Impact, Stefan started as consultant and project leader. Since 2018 he gained a lot of experience in project management, he collaborates with different stakeholders and is an expert in translating meteorological weather parameters in messages that fit the local context of a farmer.

Paula Trakoštanec, MSc

Paula holds a MSc Organic Agriculture degree at Wageningen University where she specialized in agroecology and sustainable farming systems. She has practical experience from her internship where she worked on a regenerative agriculture farm in southern Spain, conducting biodiversity research, ecosystem restoration, and working on diverse agriculture techniques. She has been a part of International Association of Students in Agricultural and Related Sciences (IAAS) for five years, which is the biggest association in the world that gathers students with agricultural related fields of study. She gained networking experience and connections from a position in the IAAS World Board. At Weather Impact she works as a business developer.

Mónica Estébanez Camarena, PhD

Mónica holds a BSc in Aerospace Engineering (Technical University of Madrid, Spain), a MPhil in Space Studies (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and a MSc by Research in Space Navigation (University of Cranfield, the UK). Also, she has obtained her PhD in Water Management at the Delft University of Technology. Her research focuses on the modelling of West African rainfall through Earth Observation, Citizen Science and Deep Learning. During her PhD she acquired and led the Schools and Satellites project, that worked with schools and farmers in the north of Ghana to monitor daily rainfall. Her background has given her ample international and multidisciplinary experience, including working in diverse cultural and social environments. She is passionate about global collaboration and co-creation for an impact. Within the Weather Impact team she is involved in business development and capacity building for stakeholders in the agricultural sector.

Lorenzo Occelli, MSc

Lorenzo finished his master Climate Physics at the University of Utrecht in 2023 and has a background in  Physics and operational forecasting algorithms. He is a real data expert, and has a strong interest in data modeling and coding. Lorenzo gained experience during his thesis project at Weather Impact, where he studies an algorithm to predict the start and intensity of the rain season in tropical areas. He works at Weather Impact as consultant.

Joanne Hullegie, MSc

Joanne completed her studies in Soil, Water and Atmosphere at the Wageningen University in 2016, followed by a Master’s degree in Climate Physics from Utrecht University in 2018. She started her professional journey as a consultant at Antea Group at the Air Quality and Nitrogen Deposition departement. There, she gained experience in applied modelling and consultancy. Subsequently she worked from 2022 at TNO in the Climate and Air Quality department as a scienstist and project manager. During her career she gained valuable experience in atmospheric science, serving in various capacities as consultant, scientist and project manager. Currently she leverages her broad expertise and knowledge as a consultant at Weather Impact.

Joep Bosdijk, MSc

Joep gained several relevant experiences during his master Earth and Environment, which he finished in 2023. For his master thesis, he studied the possibility of combining indigenous precipitation forecasts from Ghanaian farmers with meteorological models through machine learning. Next, he did his internship at Weather Impact where he leveraged a deep-learning model to nowcast heavy precipitation over the Netherlands for up to two hours ahead. Currently, he works at weather impact as a consultant.

Shashwat Shukla, MSc

Shashwat graduated (cum laude) in Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation from University of Twente in 2019. Next to his consultant role at Weather Impact, he is currently finalizing his PhD in climate science at the Delft University of Technology. He has a strong background in data analysis, climate modelling, and remote sensing. Shashwat is well versed in using observational data products to tackle multi-faceted challenges in societal, environmental, economic, and operational contexts. Since 2021, he gained a lot of experience in public speaking, enhancing multi-disciplinary collaborations, and contributing to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives. He is passionate about making a positive impact on global climate adaptation efforts from the ground up. In his free time, Shashwat loves cooking, CrossFit, and travelling, especially hiking in the mountains.

Tamara Lancel

Tamara Lancel works at Weather Impact as Management Assistant and Marketing Coördinator.

She graduated in Hotel & Hospitalitymanagement in 2007 and has a background in the hospitality industry, organizing congresses and events. In her last job she worked as a training coordinator and arranged technical IT trainings for the Benelux and Africa region. Tamara is very strong in planning, coordinating and organizing, and has experience in broad administrative and logistic work. At Weather Impact she supports the management and the team in marketing, HR, finance, administration, acquisition and other organizational tasks, to share our expertise about smart weather solutions.

Hilde Koning

Hilde is a MSc student at Wageningen University, following her last year of the Earth & Environment programme with special focus on meteorology. In the past she already worked on a project with fellow students for Weather Impact, concerning climate change resilience for livestock farming in Zimbabwe. She now joined the Weather Impact team as an intern. Here, she will be researching, expanding, and testing an algorithm that predicts the onset and intensity of the rain season in multiple additional countries in Africa. Hilde recently finished her master thesis research project, in which she researched how evaporative moisture sources of precipitation over three European catchments will change in the future. She is now very keen to apply her modelling and data analysis experience at Weather Impact.

Taurai Chigovanyika

Taurai is a second year master student in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation at Twente University. He also previously completed an MSc in Sustainable Development in Ecology at KU Leuven and holds a BSc in Environmental Science with a specialization in Natural Resources Management from Bindura University in Zimbabwe.
His current MSc thesis focuses on urban growth and how different roof materials affect indoor temperatures in Tanga City, Tanzania. Taurai has a great interest in urban environments, spatial data analysis, human health, and well-being.
At Weather Impact, Taurai will use his expertise in earth observation and geospatial data analysis to contribute to a project on nighttime heat in the Netherlands, titled 1001 Hete Nachten. Within this project, Weather Impact is responsible for meteorological research, including spatial and temporal analysis of nighttime heat to understand local variations.

 

 

Gerrit Hiemstra, MSc, HonDSc

Gerrit is a meteorologist with in-depth experience in the meteorological field. He graduated in 1986 at Wageningen University as Agricultural Engineer, with a specialization in Agricultural Meteorology, followed by a 9-year period as operational weather forecaster in a commercial weather company.

After a brief period as head of the operational weather service at Schiphol Airport he founded the successful commercial weather company WeerOnline, which was sold in 2009.

Gerrit is also the well-known weather presenter of NOS, the national news organisation of the Netherlands, since 1998. In 2014 he founded Weather Impact.

Arnold Lobbrecht, PhD

Arnold graduated in 1986 from Delft University of Technology as Civil Engineer. He gained experience in hydrology, water management and informatics during a 12-years period at a multinational consultancy firm.

After 4 years of research he obtained in 1997 his PhD in operational water management. After that he became part-time professor of hydroinformatics at UNESCO-IHE in Delft, guiding a group of PhD researchers. In 2000 he established HydroLogic, a hydroinformatics company, working on water & ICT projects.

His experience is in decision support systems with focus on flood forecasting, water availability and droughts.
In 2014 he founded Weather Impact.