Team

Executive board

Luitze Perk MSc

Luitze Perk is Director Coasts & Seas at WaterProof BV. Luitze is a coastal engineer who graduated from Delft University of Technology in the field of Coastal morphodynamics.

Luitze’s core technical experience includes hydrodynamic, water quality, and morphodynamic studies. During his career, he has been involved in setting-up, calibrating and validating numerical hydrodynamic and morphodynamic models for shallow coastal seas and estuaries all over the world. He worked on numerous coastal development projects where he determined the effects of interventions on, among others; hydrodynamics, morphodynamics, density currents, re-circulation, wave penetration and nautical aspects.

As a member and later head of the hydro- and morphodynamic modelling team at ARCADIS, he has gained extensive knowledge on the consequences of interventions in coastal regions and estuaries. Based on his expertise in modelling, Luitze now provides specific advice in the field of coasts as Advisor Coastal Projects. Besides, Mr. Perk has been involved in numerous port related projects, located all over the world, where he further developed his knowledge on nautical aspects. These projects and others have additionally shaped Luitze’s project management experience.

Luitze Perklinkedin email

Roelant Snoek MSc

Roelant Snoek holds the position of Director Acoustics & Marine Services at WaterProof BV. He studied Biology at the University of Groningen and graduated as a marine biologist. In the last years, he specialized on underwater acoustics in relation to offshore activities such as seismic exploration, pile driving, dredging operations and cable routing. Roelant has been working on environmental impact assessments for offshore winds farms in the North Sea. He is part of the Dutch Working Group on Underwater Sound, which defined an assessment methodology related to acoustics for offshore pile driving, including propagation modelling and defining criteria for threshold levels for marine mammals. In the past years, he conducted several offshore underwater acoustic measurement campaigns related to offshore activities and ambient noise.

By managing and conducting various national and international measurement campaigns, Roelant acquired extensive experience in the most optimal measurement campaign setup and strategy. This includes efficient equipment setup, to ensure the highest quality measurements. Health and safety aspects during measurement execution formed a key expertise within his projects. BOSIET & OPITO/HUET certified.

Roelant Snoeklinkedin email

Marijke Olivierse Ba

Marijke holds the position of Project assistant Coasts & Sea, Office manager and QHSE manager at WaterProof BV. She studied Integraded Coastal Zone Management at Van Hall Larenstein in Leeuwarden. For her final thesis, she studied the effect of underwater acoustics resulting from simulated military active sonar on the behaviour of marine mammals in the Norwegian Lofoten area.

At WaterProof, she deals with a wide variety of business support tasks as well as project specific activity’s. Marijke is part of our GIS team, she develops insight into PAM (Passive Acoustic Monitoring) analyzes for the detection of marine mammals, contributes to fieldwork projects and sails our measuring ship the Bumblebee

As QHSE manager, Marijke designed and implemented our Quality and Environmental Management. With this system, we have been ISO 9001: 2015 and 14001: 2015 certified since 2017. She ensures the quality of our projects by monitoring that our quality procedures are followed at all times.

She arranges the aspects for the safe execution of measurements at sea and ensures that all our projects are carried out according to our Health and Safety plan. Currenty, she is working on the ISO 45001:2018 Healthy and Safe Working certification.

 

 

 

linkedin email

Chelsea van den Heuvel BSc

Chelsea holds the position of Officemanager at WaterProof BV. After her study Communication and Multimedia design at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, she gained her work experience in various positions at a digital and creative agency. Here she also followed a management traineeship, which has provided her with a strong basis in entrepreneurial, leadership and management qualities.

Chelsea uses this knowledge and skills at WaterProof for various business and management support tasks. In addition, she performs various administrative tasks and supports our QHSE manager in keeping our quality-, environment- and safety management system up-to-date.

 

linkedinemail

Nathanaël Geleynse PhD

Nathanaël Geleynse holds the position of Advisor Coasts and Seas at WaterProof BV. Nathanael is a Physical Geographer by training and has been involved in projects on coastal projects for many years now. After studying Physical Geography at Utrecht University, he obtained his doctorate at Delft University of Technology on the formation of river deltas. He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher with the National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics, USA, where he contributed to the development of methods for coastline detection from bathymetric data sets as well as from satellite imagery, among other research.

As a technical expert, he has contributed to many different studies, ranging from the development of hydrodynamic models for the design and evaluation of primary water defences to providing expert advice on capital and maintenance dredging associated with harbour and channel development and management. Recently, he has been involved in studies preparing for the development of future models within the Dutch legislative framework for primary water defences as well as he has been involved in the design of the (New) Afsluitdijk.

Nathanael values a good collaboration with the different partners to enable the definition of the best solutions for the problem at hand. For example, as a technical advisor he has collaborated with the Frisian Water Board on the first evaluation of the water defence system at the barrier island Schiermonnikoog in the Dutch Wadden Sea. From his academic background, Nathanael enjoys working with researchers and students to allow for the integration of the latest research findings in the daily engineering practice and to enable knowledge transfer.

At WaterProof BV Nathanael works within the golden triangle of field experiments, computational models and laboratory models on various studies with a focus on fluid dynamics, waves, salt intrusion, oil spills, sediment transport and morphology.

 Nathanaël Geleynseemail

Joost Brinkkemper PhD

Joost holds the position of Specialist Coasts and Seas at WaterProof BV. He graduated in 2013 from the master Physical Geography at Utrecht University with a specialisation in coastal dynamics and fluvial systems. During his graduation research, he focused on wave non-linearity in the shallow coastal zone and during an internship at the LIPC coastal instate in Merida (Mexico) he worked on wave run-up at the local beaches. After his master, Joost continued his career at Utrecht University as a PhD candidate, studying sand transport in the surf zone. He obtained his PhD degree in March 2018. During his time at Utrecht University, he gained much experience in collecting and analysing field data and working with several numerical models.

At WaterProof, Joost is involved in a wide variety of subjects. He works on hydrodynamic and morphodynamic studies in the coastal zone, but he is also heavily involved in projects concerning underwater acoustics. As Joost has experience with both numerical models as with executing field measurements, he is also often involved in field campaigns. Therefore, Joost is at the moment often found at sea for collecting measurements of underwater acoustics, and those measurements are also analysed by himself after returning to shore. Joost is BOSIET & OPITO/HUET certified.

During his career, Joost published many of his results in scientific journals.

 linkedinemail

Pepijn van Tol MSc

Pepijn van Tol holds the position of Specialist Coasts and Sea at WaterProof. He did his bachelor Ocean Technology at the MIWB on Terschelling, after which he followed the master Geoscience and Remote Sensing at Delft University of Technology. He has good understanding of data acquisition, processing and modelling. His master thesis was on RTK-GNSS augmentation data spoofing.

 

Pepijnlinkedin email

Koen van der Laan MSc

Koen van der Laan holds the position of Specialist Coasts & Sea at WaterProof. He graduated in 2017 from the master Marine Sciences at Utrecht University. During his graduation research at the Faculty Geosciences and the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric research Utrecht (IMAU), he studied the effects of changes in the ocean circulation on surface water temperatures in the Golf of Guinea during the Pliocene and Miocene. In a guided research at the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) he analysed the spatio- and temporal variability of the volume- heat- and freshwater transport of the Irminger Current from field measurements and reanalysis data. This research took place as part of the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP), which aims to quantify the strength and variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

At WaterProof BV. Koen deals with numerical modelling and data analysis of hydro- and morphodynamics in the coastal zone.

linkedin email

Ruben van der Neut

Ruben van der Neut works as specialist Coasts & Sea. Ruben holds an BSc in ocean technology (CAT-A hydrographic surveying) from the MIWB and since the summer of 2017 an MSc in applied marine science from the University of Plymouth U.K. During his dissertation in collaboration with Plymouth Coastal Observatory, hey predominantly focused on defining the origin, spatial- and temporal behavior of ferry fine sediment deposits in front of the South-East coast of England (Start Bay). He gained extensive knowledge and expertise about survey, morphological behavior and GIS analytics and visualizations during both his academic and professional career.

Ruben is focusing on the direct link between data collection, data preparation as data analytics within domains as morphological dynamics as well in underwater acoustics. Ruben holds both CAT-A survey and BOSIET certification and therefore often involved in field campaigns.

Doke Schoonhoven

Doke Schoonhoven works at WaterProof as a Coastal & Sea Project Officer. In December 2020, she completed the Master's programme Earth & Environment at Wageningen University. During her thesis at the Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management chair group, she investigated and validated the influence of snow in the Alps on the discharge into the Rhine in a hydrological model. During her internship with the Sea Ice Physics group of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute Helmoltz-centre for Polar- and Marine research, she investigated the spatial and temporal variability of snow and ice processes in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, through a data analysis. During both studies, Doke gained a lot of experience in Rstudio and Python. In addition, during a minor at Spitsbergen and various courses at home and abroad, she gained a lot of fieldwork and some lab experience.
At WaterProof, Doke is involved in conducting experiments in the lab, the stream gutters and the large and small basin. In addition, she contributes to data processing, analyses and reporting.

Marcio Boechatlinkedin email

Lykele Pool

Lykele holds the position of technical specialist at WaterProof. He has over thirthy years of technical expericience in several different workfields.

Lykele is our technical specialist and is recently trained to conduct surveying work offshore as well (BOSIET OPITO/HUET certified). He can set-up equipment and provide the necessary technical hands-on support on site. In the last couple of months, Lykele has conducted noise measurements at an offshore platform in the North Sea and at the installation of the Borssele OWF on behalf of the Dutch government.

 

email

Rinse de Swart PhD

Rinse de Swart holds the position of Specialist Coasts and Seas at WaterProof BV. He studied Physical Geography at Utrecht University, where he specialized in coasts and estuaries. For his master's thesis, Rinse modeled salt intrusion and tidal propagation in an estuarine channel network with Delft3D and he studied the long-term morphological development of nearshore sandbars during his internship at the research group 'Coastal Morphodynamics' of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona. After completing his studies at the end of 2015, Rinse worked for one year at WaterProof as a Junior Specialist Coast & Sea, where he mainly focused on numerical modeling and data analysis of hydro- and morphodynamics in the coastal zone.

Between May 2017 and July 2022, Rinse worked as a PhD student and postdoc at the 'Coastal Morphodynamics' research group of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona. He studied the dynamics and interactions between morphological patterns in nearshore sandbars and the coastline. He obtained his doctorate cum laude in July 2022. Since November 2022, Rinse has returned to WaterProof and is once again working on hydrodynamic and morphodynamic studies in the coastal zone, in which he can optimally use his gained experience of recent years.

During his career, Rinse published many of his results in scientific journals.

linkedin

Jack O'Callaghan

Jack holds the position of Project Officer Coast and Sea at WaterProof BV. He studied Environmental Science in NUI Galway and completed a masters in Marine Biology from UCC Cork. Previously, he has worked for the Irish national agency for river and marine conservation as a research technician. During this time, he conducted research on fish telemetry and predation of salmonids using acoustic tracking technology. This work was part of the COMPASS Project, which aimed to develop marine observational and data management capacity across the EU by sharing a network of oceanographic monitoring equipment between the partners of the project.

Jack has also worked as an ICP-MS technician conducting research on diadromous species of fish. Jack’s passion lies in fieldwork and has previously worked for the Irish Marine Institute conducting surveys at sea for the Bluefin Tuna Tagging Programme, as well as fisheries research onboard the Celtic Voyager research vessel.

With WaterProof BV, he hopes to continue his work in the field as an offshore surveyor and all round fieldworker.

linkedin

Meike Traas

Meike Traas works at WaterProof as a Specialist Coast and Sea. In September 2022, she completed the master Earth Surface and Water (Physical Geography) at Utrecht University, with a specialization in coastal dynamics and fluvial systems. During her master thesis at the Physical Geography Department, she investigated the influence of river discharge on the morphology and salinity in estuaries. For this, she used a numerical model to make predictions on a global scale. She performed her master internship at WaterProof, where she looked at the suitability and sensitivity of an echosounder for measuring sediment concentrations under different circumstances.

Within WaterProof, Meike is involved in data processing and numerical modelling and analysis of the hydro- and morphodynamics in the coastal zone.

linkedin

Kamiel Röell

Kamiel Röell is currently active as Specialist Coast & Sea at WaterProof. He graduated from the master’s programme Earth Surface and Water at Utrecht University in October 2022. During the programme, he became a specialist in hydro- and morphodynamics of coastal systems. He performed both his research internship and MSc thesis at Deltares. The internship focused on mapping de hydrodynamics in several benthic habitats as a part of the Coastal Genesis 2.0 pilot nourishment at the Amelander tidal inlet. The MSc thesis was about large-scale changes in and fluxes of sediment volumes on the lower shoreface of the Holland coast.

His main responsibilities at WaterProof are setting up models and performing analyses of model and measuring data with regard to hydro-morphodynamics.

linkedin

 

 

Our partners

Besides our own staff, we also closely cooperate with our partners.

prof. dr. Leo van Rijn

Prof. Dr. Leo van Rijn is an independent consultant since his retirement in 2011 from Delft Hydraulics/Deltares and the University of Utrecht and has over 40 years experience in basic hydraulics (river, tidal and coastal flows), sediment transport and morphology of rivers, estuaries and coasts. He has participated as a team member and as project manager in many hydraulic and morphological studies in the Netherlands and abroad, using both physical and mathematical models. Various mathematical models have been developed to compute the sedimentation of channels and basins. Another activity has been the development of instruments for measuring in-situ velocity and sediment transport in rivers, estuaries and coastal seas.

He has written five books about fluid mechanics, morphology and sediment transport:

- Principles of fluid flow and surface waves in rivers, estuaries, seas and oceans (1990,2011);  
- Principles of sediment transport in rivers, estuaries and coastal seas (1993, 2012);
- Principles of coastal morphology (1998);
- Principles of sedimentation and erosion engineering in rivers, estuaries, coastal seas (2005, 2012);
- Manual of sediment transport measurements (1986, 2007).

 

WaterProof_Logo_RGB email

Michel van Staveren

After graduating from technical college (electronics, electrical engineering and computer science), Michel van Staveren worked in the process industry, the semiconductor industry and as a RD&E software developer. He founded Jato Cleanroom Supplies in 2007. Due to his activities as a RD&E software developer, he has extensive experience in all aspects of innovative control systems, measurement sensors and their applications. Since 2015, he collaborates with WaterProof on the development of the prototype buoy JaT01. This prototype is a scalable platform with a wide choice in components. Depending on the application, different forms of sensors, energy supply (batteries, with or without solar panels) and various communication options (Lora, GPRS or satellite) can be chosen.

 


homelinkedin email

Gijs van Banning MSc

Mr. Van Banning is Senior Adviser Hydro- and Morphodynamics at WaterProof Marine Consultancy & Services BV.

Gijs is a Civil Engineer, with specialism in fluid dynamics, he is always looking at challenges on the edge of science and practical application. He has a positive and eager attitude towards work. He enjoys his work. An open atmosphere and respect for everyone is his basis.

Working for almost 40 years in the field of complicated hydro-and morpho-dynamics should have made him a specialist in these fields. Well he knows, but he is still learning.

The understanding of the 3D physics of nature and the simulation of its behaviour in numerical models is his expertise. Keywords: tides, waves, salt fresh water interaction (gravitation circulation), cohesive and non-cohesive sediments, rainfall runoff, temperature and salinity, intakes and outfalls, refreshments, water quality, erosion and deposition, scour, hurricanes and tsunami modelling. Interaction between atmosphere and water.

Gijs is a part time Senior Advisor to WaterProof. He has worked as a team member and as Project Manager all over the world in large numbers of port and coastal projects, mostly with the emphasis on the mathematical modelling of hydrodynamics and morphology. Gijs gave regular guest lectures at the Technical University of Delft.

Dr. Hessel Voortman

Dr Hessel Voortman (working at Hessel Voortman Engineering Consultancy) is an independent expert specialising in hydraulic structures (such as locks, dams and storm surge barriers) and water safety. Hessel has more than 25 years of international experience as consultant, designer and project manager in planning studies, tendering (both on the public and private side) and execution of large projects. He has worked on the Merwedebrug A27 (tender), “Brouwersdam” culvert (planning study), structures in the “Afsluitdijk” structures (tender and implementation design), the sea locks in IJmuiden and Terneuzen (tender and implementation design), widening of Twente canals (planning study) and expansion of Afsluitdijk sluice gates (planning study). Aside from numerous Dutch projects, Hessel has worked in among others Belgium, Sweden, the United States and South Korea.

Hessel's approach is "theory in practice". He operates on the basis of content at the interface of design, implementation and science. He translates the information requirements of the design into work programmes for hydraulic modelling. Often, existing models turn out to be inappropriate. In those situations, Hessel initiates the development of customised models or he builds them himself. He regularly acts as intermediary for knowledge institutes to ensure that knowledge and practice are well connected in view of project goals. Hessel is author or co-author of more than thirty scientific publications and conference contributions.

homelinkedin