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We are happy to introduce two new colleagues: Mieke Lumens and Erwin van Sas. From 1 September onwards, they will succeed Shirrinka Goubitz as Educational Advisor to the Future Food Hub’s Board. Shirrinka started last January in a new position at the UMC Utrecht, within the Graduate School of Life Sciences.

Among many other skills, Mieke and Erwin bring expertise in developing interdisciplinary bachelor and master courses. They are committed to develop a new food-related minor at the UU and other initiatives that contribute to Future Food’s Educational ambitions.

Have you got ideas for new educational food-related initiatives within the university? Please contact Mieke and Erwin. 

Mieke Lumens is assistant professor at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, where she coordinates the MSc and PhD programme in Toxicology and Environmental Health. Mieke is trained as a researcher in environmental sciences. However, over the last years her interests have shifted towards academic education and education policy.

She teaches and coordinates courses within the bachelor programmes Biomedical sciences, Global Sustainability Studies and at ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ College Utrecht. She is also a member of the Graduate School Life Sciences Expert Group Education in Life Sciences, that initiates innovations in education.

My ambition in Future Food education is to introduce students with all kinds of academic backgrounds, both at bachelor and master level to the opportunities and challenges the inter– and transdisciplinary food related research at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ offers them.

Erwin van Sas is Economics fellow and teacher of economics at ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ College Utrecht (UCU). He is also tutor at UCU, and coordinator of and teacher in the interdisciplinary course Gastronomy: the Art and Sciences of Food. His professional interests relate to issues of multi-, inter- and transdisciplinarity in academic education, and rethinking economics. One of his private passions concerns food, in all dimensions imaginable – both the arts as well as the sciences.

My ambition as education advisor is to develop a ‘truly’ inter- or transdisciplinary academic program that is more than interesting for students from various disciplinary backgrounds to acknowledge the complexity of Future Food problems and that solutions cannot be found easily in order to address the complex challenges ahead.