Travelers / Supervisors

Name: prof. dr. ir. Martin van Maarseveen
Date of Birth: June 16, 1952
Position: Full professor in Strategic Transport Planning and Sustainable Development

Born in Utrecht, the central node of the Dutch transportation system, Martin studied in Twente and obtained a Master degree in Applied Mathematics with a specialisation in Stochastic Systems and Control Theory. After completing his PhD thesis on Estimation and Control of Motorway Traffic Flow he worked for nine years at the Traffic and Transport Department of the TNO Netherlands Research Organisation for Applied Scientific Research in Delft. As a senior researcher and head of department he was involved in many projects on transport planning and modelling as well as traffic management and traffic safety. In 1989 he joined the University of Twente and became one of the founding fathers of the School for Civil Engineering & Management. Since 1995 he is a full professor and head of the Centre for Transport Studies (CTS). He is a staff member of the Netherlands Research School TRAIL on Transport, Infrastructure and Logistics, and chairman of the Dutch Biennial Conference on Traffic Engineering. He is a founder of the Knowledge Centre AIDA (Applications of Integrated Driver Assistance), guest lecturer at the University of Cape Town, and chairman of the Cycling Academic Network, an international network of academic research institutes working in the field of cycling-inclusive planning. In 1978 he made his first trip to Africa, travelling for a month through Tanzania and Zambia. Ever since, he developed a predilection for the African people and culture, their way of life, beautiful land, lovely climate and astonishing wildlife. Professionally, he has had the opportunity to travel on all continents, and to meet researchers and practitioners working in the civil engineering field. He considers these experiences extremely useful and motivating: broadening one’s vision and rethinking one’s mind. Familiar with travelling alone or with a small group of people, he had a wonderful and successful experience with a group tour through Botswana he organised for the CTS staff in 2000. Nevertheless, he considers his participation in the ConcepT Study Tour a great challenge. He has a wife and three daughters (all engaged), loves photography and collects stamps, in particular African…

Name: ir. Pieter van Oel
Date of Birth: January 15, 1980
Position: Ph.D. Candidate

Pieter was born in Meppel and raised in Groningen, a part of the Netherlands where many ancestors of de Afrikaner Boers came from. In 1997, he started studying in Twente. Back then, scholars like Martin van Maarseveen, Leo Smink and Cees Vreugdenhil taught him the basics of Civil Engineering. Following an internship at TAUW in Utrecht, Pieter participated in the Minor International Management as part of which he visited Kenya and Tanzania for an erosion protection project lead by Alterra Wageningen. For the finalization of his Master in 2002, Pieter enrolled in a project on appropriate sanitation in Mohlaletse, Limpopo, South Africa, initiated by people from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. From 2003, Pieter is involved in a PhD project focussing on adaptive water use and water management in response to variations in water availability (climate change) in the semi-arid northeast of Brazil. Two trips to the region came along with the job. Other research activities include the Water footprint of the Netherlands. During your bachelor or master you might have seen Pieter contributing to the subjects Water, Data analysis in water engineering and management, Employment Based Civil Engineering and Introduction into Modelling (B). His stays in Africa made a big impression on Pieter. What impressed him the most is the positive attitude towards life of most of the African people, which is in great contrast to the many sad facts on which you are daily updated through news reporting on Africa in the Netherlands. Pieter can’t wait to return to South Africa.