Agata van Oosten was born in Warsaw, Poland. In 2000, she decided to study Environmental Protection at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. “I was eighteen and didn’t exactly know what I wanted yet, I thought the environment was interesting and it matched my interests. I have always been fascinated with animals and nature since I was a child.”
“In retrospect, I am still very pleased with my choice. The study was mainly about environmental protection and conservation. We made models to protect nature and wild-life, but were also taught about water management, waste treatment, process technology, chemistry and biology. It was very diverse.” On the flipside, through her studies, Agata discovered urgency of climate action early on. “During the span of my studies, I saw that pollution, loss of biodiversity, land degradation were increasing at a worrying rate.”
Right after her studies, she moved to Wageningen to work in the ecological research world. Shortly after, she became Coordinator of European Projects, where she was mainly concerned with grant writing for projects. At the same time she pursued a PhD.
She joined ISPT because she missed the social aspect of her work. Agata believes that change can only be realized when working together. Let that be exactly what ISPT stands for. In Agata’s words, “ISPT has a collective voice. Through making connections and facilitating discussions, we know what is going on and what is needed. We translate our insight and feed it back to the industry for them to work on concretely.”
A collective voice, that’s we facilitate
Agata van Oosten – Expert on water management and waste treatment
Agata takes care of the Heat Integration, Deep Eutectic Solvents (DES) and Fascinating programs. Her work mainly consists of facilitating ongoing projects, networking and bringing together key players. “The most important thing for me is that partners in projects become a true community. Where knowledge is gained and shared. At ISPT we never do it alone, we bring industry and technology providers together: see what kind of research is needed and then realize it together.”