René H. Wijffels

Biography

EDUCATION 1987 -1994 PhD in Environmental and Agricultural Sciences, specialty Bioprocess Engineering, Wageningen University, Wageningen 1982 -1987 MSc in Environmental Engineering, Wageningen University, Wageningen 1977-1982 BSC in Food Engineering at the Den Bosch Polytechnic Agricultural School SCIENTIFIC & PROFESSIONAL CAREER Since 2007 Professor and chairholder at Wageningen University, Bioprocess Engineering Since 2013 Professor at Nord university, Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture, Bodø, Norway 2012-2016 Director of the Wageningen UR strategic program on biorefinery 2012-2014 Director of Centre for Biobased Economy ; The Centre of Biobased Economy is an education innovation program. The Centre of Biobased Economy is a collaboration of a Centre of Excellence (Wageningen UR) and 6 Centres of Expertise (Universities of Applied Science) 2010- Scientific director of AlgaePARC 2005-2007 Professor Marine Biotechnology at Wageningen University, personal chair 2005 VICI laureate on the project ‘Photosynthetic Cell Factories’ STW) 2001-2004 Ad-interim chairman Bioprocess Engineering, Wageningen University 2001-2005 Associate professor Wageningen University, Food and Bioprocess Engineering 1999-2000 Study coordinator Wageningen University of the study programs Bioprocess Engineering and Biotechnology 1990-2001 Assistant professor Wageningen University, Food and Bioprocess Engineering 1987-1990 PhD in Environmental and Agricultural Sciences, Wageningen University RESEARCH Involved in more than 50 projects in the last 10 years; 5 key projects are given below: 1. Photosynthetic Cell Factories. VICI grant, Photosynthetic Cell Factories, 2005-2010 2. Wetsus-algae. Wetsus is a collaboration of the universities of Delft, Groningen, Twente and Wageningen in the field of water technology. In this program there is a theme on microalgae with support from 15 companies 8 PhD projects ran under this umbrella 3. AlgaePARC pilot plant. Project for infrastructure and research for a pilot facility. Funding of the infrastructure was from the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Netherlands and the Province of Gelderland. The research program is a public private partnership with 40% support of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and 60% from companies under the umbrella of the Biosolar Cells program. 4. AlgaePARC Biorefinery: a public private partnership program on the biorefinery of microalgae. For this program production of microalgae takes place at pilot scale. 5. EU projects. Presently we are involved in 4 EU projects of which Wageningen UR is coordinator of 3 (SPLASH, FUEL4ME and MIRACLES)

Research Interest

Bioreactors, Food and bioprocess engineering