About me:
I am passionate about driving social impact and fostering personal development by focusing on the question:
How can education prepare students to transform complex systems?
My PhD research explores how change agent education influences students' personal development and their societal impact. To investigate this, I use a combination of big data analysis, survey research, and longitudinal studies.
Interested in collaborating or exchanging ideas? Feel free to reach out at m.a.m.vanpul@uu.nl
Academic and Professional Background:
My journey began at Leiden 木瓜福利影视 College, where I built a broad interdisciplinary foundation for understanding just, sustainable, and democratic societies. During a course on community education, we read Paulo Freire鈥檚 Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This book opened my eyes to the transformative power of education in shaping societal change. This led me to explore the connection between civic education and political participation in my bachelor鈥檚 thesis.
I deepened this focus in my Master鈥檚 in Youth, Education, and Society at Utrecht 木瓜福利影视. Here, I researched how democratic citizenship education could be strengthened by democratizing parental participation in secondary schools. Alongside my studies, I worked as a Student Assistant at the Utrecht Network for Inclusive Education and as a Research Intern at Fontys 木瓜福利影视 of Applied Sciences. This gave me the opportunity to further develop my understanding of educational interventions and social pedagogy.
Professionally, I have designed and implemented sustainability education programs with the Young Innovators program at Stichting Technotrend. Together with the team, I engaged over 2500 students in systems thinking and local sustainability challenges in Dutch secondary schools. Through the Erasmus+ project, YETI, I contributed to the integration of citizen engagement competencies in our education programs. Finally, I helped develop the Future-Based Learning Model, which integrates futuring and systems thinking in the challenge based learning process to instill active hope in students.