Nico Tillie

Chairperson, EcoCity 2021

Kirstin Miller

Executive Director, Ecocity Builders

Russell Galt

Head, IUCN’s Urban Alliance

Sharon Gil

Programme Officer, UNEP’s Paris Office

Sharon Gil is a programme officer in UNEP’s Paris Office and leads the work on circular economy in cities. She is a strong advocate for a just transition to a circular economy. She also coordinates partnerships and joint resource mobilization on sustainable urbanization for UNEP.

An urban planner by profession, Sharon started her career in sustainable urban development in the late 90s, as a technical expert on the award-winning UNDP Private Sector Participation in Managing the Environment (PRIME) Project which has the distinction of being one of the first eco-industrial initiatives in Asia. She continued to develop her expertise in sustainable urbanization by rehabilitating old urban areas in Hong Kong with a private architecture and planning firm. Moving back to the development sector, she was instrumental in conceptualizing and implementing the first multi-hazard mapping project focused in coastal cities in the Philippines, bringing together scientists in different fields and linking them with local government actors. She also worked for over a year as Planning Advisor in Zambia where she focused on capacity building on land distribution and gender equality. Sharon joined UNEP in 2012 to manage a project on mainstreaming environment issues in city planning and management.

Sharon has a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University New York’s School of International and Public Affairs. She studied urban planning at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Architecture as a Japan/ADB fellow.

Andre Confiado

Associate Programme Officer, Cities Unit of the Economy Division of the UN Environment Programme

André Confiado is an Associate Programme Officer for the Cities Unit of the Economy Division of the UN Environment Programme. He supports the Unit’s work on operationalizing urban metabolism and circular economy at the city-level. He also supports the coordination of partnerships and joint resource mobilization on sustainable urbanization for UNEP.

He has previously worked in operational logistics and project management in the fields of post-disaster recovery, human rights, and open data for development.

André holds a Master of Public Affairs from Sciences Po Paris (the Paris Institute for Political Studies). In his spare time, André enjoys playing basketball, cooking, and loves discovering new places.

Prof.dr.ir. Andy van den Dobbelsteen

Professor of Climate Design & Sustainability; Department of Architectural Engineering + Technology

‘I work in the field of sustainable buildings and sustainable energy systems, as well as climate adaptation: anticipating predicted changes in the climate. We conduct research and translate solutions into actions and new concepts. We also look for and find new relationships where none existed before.

The Climate Design & Sustainability chair has close links with the technical aspect of Architecture. Our research focuses on sustainable energy systems and climate adaptation, but we also design and create new and specific products.

Rob Roggema

Landscape Architect and Professor of Spatial Transformations, ‘NoorderRuimte’, Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, the Netherlands

Katharina Hoelscher

Senior Researcher on Climate Governance, Cities and Sustainability Transitions, Dutch Research Institute For Transitions (DRIFT) with Erasmus University Rotterdam

Sahar Attia

Emeritus Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University

Marco Roos

Member of the Scientific Staff, Naturalis Biodiversity Centre

Marco Roos is member of the scientific staff of Naturalis Biodiversity Centre. Trained as a tropical botanist and pteridologist, his field of expertise is now Dutch flora and Urban biodiversity. He is also affiliated to Leiden University as examiner Biology and coordinator of the curriculum on Urban ecology. His main interests at the moment are urban ecological networks and floristics, and spontaneous vegetation processes in urban areas.

Jip Louwe Kooijmans

Team Leader, BirdLife in the Netherlands (Vogelbescherming Nederland)

Jip Louwe Kooijmans works at BirdLife in the Netherlands (Vogelbescherming Nederland). He is team leader for the national program on urban bird conservation. Published several books and reports on birds, including:
- Stadsvogels (handbook on urban bird conservation), 2009
- State of the urban birds, 2009 & 2013
- Stadsvogels in hun domein (urban bird benchmark) 2014

Steffen Nijhuis

Head of Landscape Architecture, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch

Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia & Nature - Based Solutions Institute

Bertram de Rooij

Landscape Architect and Senior Researcher, Wageningen Environmental Research

Maarten Nypels

PHD Researcher, DRIFT

Denise Noslin

Urban development, City of Rotterdam