Royal award for Paulien Herder
On 26 April 2022, Professor Paulien Herder, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, was awarded a Royal distinction in the municipality of Pijnacker-Nootdorp. Paulien Herder was appointed a Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands, an award given to persons who have made an exceptional contribution to Dutch society.
Professor Paulien Herder is a “uniter” par excellence. After originally completing her studies in chemical engineering, she worked for a number of years at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management (TPM). In linking her own discipline, engineering systems sciences, with the social and behavioural sciences, she was a fervent advocate of an integrated approach. She also devoted much of her time and energy to the “energy transition”, for example by serving as chair of the Delft Energy Initiative, the platform that unites all the energy-focused education and research at TU Delft. Hugely popular under her students, she was awarded the Teaching Excellence Prize in 2017, the distinction awarded by TU Delft to professors who excel above all others in combining teaching and research.
Paulien Herder receives the Royal award from Mayor Björn Lugthart from the municipality of Pijnacker-Nootdorp
In 2019, Herder moved to the Department of Process & Energy at the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (3mE). There, she became programme manager for e-Refinery, the inter-faculty programme in which technology and systems are developed for the production of raw materials and fuels from sustainable energy. She was also active in the energy domain outside TU Delft. She is Captain of Science within the TopTeam Energy, in which role she focuses on accelerating the energy transition innovation process by linking knowledge institutes. Since 2019, she has also served as a member of management of the NWO Domain Applied and Technical Sciences, in which role she was also a champion of interdisciplinary cooperation and linking science with the world of business.
In 1994, Paulien Herder completed her studies at TU Delft in chemical engineering. In 1999, she was awarded a PhD at the TPM faculty after completing her thesis on ‘Process Design in a Changing Environment’. After her PhD studies, she continued doing research into the design of large-scale complex systems. She was also very closely involved in the international research consortium Next Generation Infrastructures. Since 2009, she has been Professor of Engineering Systems Design in Energy & Industry. After managing the e-Refinery for several years, she was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences in 2021.