Tom Veldkamp New Dean ITC

The Supervisory Board of the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) has appointed Prof. Tom A. Veldkamp (46) to the post of rector/dean. He will succeed Prof. Martien Molenaar, who steps down on 1st January 2010.  

Tom Veldkamp has a PhD in agricultural and environmental sciences from the Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR). He is currently professor of land dynamics, head of the WUR Landscape Centre and interim scientific director of the Centre for Geo-Information and Remote Sensing (Environmental Science Group, WUR).

Tom Veldkamp will be appointed part-time professor of spatial environmental quality no later than 1 October 2009, after which he will be appointed rector/dean of ITC as of 1 January 2010.

Through his chair, Veldkamp hopes to make a contribution to the increasing attention directed towards the quality of the environment, particularly in developing countries. Veldkamp's challenge will be developing and applying new scientific methods of remote sensing and geo-information in the field of environmental quality. The methods that will be developed will be applied at different levels: from a single square metre to regional and global scales.

Veldkamp will utilise the period up to 1 January 2010 to prepare for his rectorship. He will be intensively involved with the further embedding of ITC as the sixth, special, faculty within the University of Twente from 1 January 2010. The specific character and mission of ITC after the integration will be maintained. The new rector/dean has the special task of carrying out the ITC mission within the new setting of the Institute as faculty of the University of Twente. Furthermore, Veldkamp will contribute to embedding the ITC faculty in the Dutch academic domain and he will give shape to the intensification of cooperation within the University of Twente and with other Dutch universities.