Dr. Alexander Laarman
Director Operations
Alexander’s role at the Jan IngenHousz Institute is to manage the daily operations of the Institute. He is responsible for the finance, legal, human resources, communications and business development activities.
After his study Biomedical Sciences in Leiden, Alexander obtained his PhD in Molecular Microbiology at the Eijkman Winkler Institute within University Medical Center in Utrecht to study the host pathogen interaction on a protein level, which resulted in several scientific papers in the field.
During his PhD, Alexander had a traineeship at Nestlé Research in Lausanne and discovered his passion to translate science to practice. This motivated him to develop his role in science as business development manager to bridge scientific knowledge with the real world.
At the drinking water utility Vitens, Alexander was responsible for the setup and implementation of the valorization program to upcycle all byproducts from drinking water production to farmers. In 2015 this program won the prize for National Circular Icon of the Netherlands and guided the strategic change of Vitens towards the circular economy and to implement concepts to support resiliency.
At the AMS Institute (TU Delft, WUR, MIT and city of Amsterdam) and Wageningen University & Research Alexander was responsible for the design, financing and implementation of new national and international research projects on metropolitan food systems and worked on vertical farming and short food supply chains.
Alexander’s scientific background and experience as ‘facilitator for science’ will support and lead the Jan IngenHousz Institute in accomplishing its mission.
