Stefan Aarninkhof appointed as dean of CEG
TU Delft’s Executive Board has appointed Professor Stefan Aarninkhof to the position of Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CEG) with effect from 1 January 2024.
Stefan Aarninkhof studied Civil Engineering at TU Delft. His graduation work with the former Delft Hydraulics (now Deltares) formed the basis for his doctoral thesis 'Nearshore Bathymetry derived from Video Imagery'. After obtaining his PhD in 2003, Aarninkhof stayed at Deltares for several more years before joining Boskalis, one of the companies that initiated the ‘Building with Nature’ programme, in 2006. In 2016, he returned to TU Delft to become Professor of Coastal Engineering at CEG. In 2020, he was appointed chair of the Hydraulic Engineering department.
One of the focal points of Aarninkhof's research is the development of nature-based adaptation strategies for coastal systems affected by climate change. Since 2022, he has been director of the EcoShape Foundation, a partnership of companies, government bodies, knowledge institutes and NGOs that focuses on the development and implementation of 'Building with Nature' solutions in the field of hydraulic engineering. He is also a member of the supervisory board of the Netherlands Centre for Coastal Research (NCK), chair of the Working Group Coast of the Expertise Network for Flood Protection (ENW) and forerunner/member of the Council for Civil Engineering.
Stefan Aarninkhof succeeds Jan Dirk Jansen, who, after more than five years as dean, now plans to focus again on research and education in his field of expertise: the understanding of subsurface processes for the benefit of new underground technology such as geothermal energy.