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.

Bob Ammerlaan, MSc

Bob Ammerlaan MSc. works at Weather Impact as consultant.

Bob has a background in Physics and Meteorology and graduated in 2018 at Utrecht University in Meteorology, Physical Oceanography and Climate.

At Weather Impact, Bob works as consultant meteorology and climate change. He is responsible for the operational services at Weather Impact. He has experience with weather forecasting in Southeast Asia and East Africa and is an expert in using agricultural and meteorological information to give the best advice to local farmers.

Edith Tea, MSc

Edith has studied Hydrology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, for which she received a Rotary Grant Scholarship. She also has a background in Physics from Gettysburg College, United States. She has gained experience with proposal writing, academic research and has great skills in data analysis. At Weather Impact, Edith is responsible for project acquisition regarding weather services. She also speaks several languages – French, Spanish and English -, a great benefit for our international work.

Janina Fraas, MSc

Janina holds a MSc Climate Studies degree at Wageningen University where she focused on meteorology and programming. She got to know Weather Impact already during her first year of the MSc studies where she worked on a university group project for Weather Impact. This project has inspired her so that she tailored her study program towards agro-meteorological climate services. Next to that, she brings an unique background because she holds a BSc degree in International Development Studies and took leading roles in several international student associations. At Weather Impact she works as consultant.

Glenn van Graafeiland, MSc

Glenn works at Weather Impact as consultant.

Glenn finished his master Climate Studies at Wageningen University in 2022. Before he did a bachelor Earth Sciences in Utrecht, where he graduated on surface water contamination. During his masters he discovered meteorology and was fascinated by this discipline. He has a lot of experience with data analyses techniques and is eager to make an actual impact on the challenges we face due to climate change. For his internship with Weather Impact he was involved in the Rain in Africa project, for which he validated model output by means of observations by the Rwanda Meteorological Agency. In his current role as consultant he supports the team in several projects.

Paula Trakostanec, 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.

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.

Lorenzo Occelli

Lorenzo is a Climate Physics student at Utrecht University and now joined our team to do his thesis and gain extra-academic experience. He works on the ‘Start of the rain season’ project, where he studies an algorithm to predict the start and intensity of the rain season in tropical areas.

Thirza Feenstra

Thirza finished here Bachelor in Civil Engineering at the TU Delft and is currently studying Geoscience and Remote Sensing. She really enjoys working with data to get a better understanding of the earth, specifically about climate and weather. At Weather Impact she will do an internship of four months, in which she will work on validating the Rain in Africa product.

Gerrit Hiemstra, MSc

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.