Prof. Ann van Griensven, bio-engineer, obtained her PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in 2002 with a thesis titled “developments towards integrated water quality modelling at river basin scale” and continued conducting research on water quality and climate change studies throughout her further career at the University of California, Riverside, and at Ghent University, IHE-Delft (former UNESCO- IHE) and the VUB.
Ann van Griensven is currently professor and head of department of the Water and Climate department of the VUB and Associate Professor of hydrology and water quality in the chair group of hydrology and water resources at the IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education. She is leading a research team on water quality and climate change consisting of 15 PhD researchers and 5 post-doc researchers. In 2022, she became the UNESCO Chair-holder on Water Science and Education at the VUB and in 2023 she obtained an AXA CHAIR on Water Quality and Global Change.
She is the president of Belgian Chapter of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (UNESCO-IHP) and member of the UNESCO-IHP council. She leads the Open Ended Working Group 1 on Science and Innovative Research of the UNESCO-IHP IX Strategic Plan ‘”Science for a Water Secure World in a Changing Environment” . She is also member of the council of the Belgian Climate Center and vice president of the International Committee of Water Quality.