Rikkert Maes holds a Master in Environmental Science from the University of Antwerp, a Master in Comparative and International Politics and a Bachelor in Sociology. For his Master degrees, Rikkert wrote two theses, enabling him to gain in-depth experience in academic research. For his last thesis he spent most of the last year working on mainstreaming ‘adaptation to climate change’ in the development cooperation sector. The courses he took however, covered a much broader array of environmental themes, i.e. sustainable development, green economy, climate change and ecosystem services.
During his studies Rikkert participated in sessions organized by the think tank ‘Network: Sustainable Leuven’ (NSL). NSL is a platform that brings together different actors, from different backgrounds, to brainstorm on how to make their cities more sustainable.
In his spare time, Rikkert has a great interest in themes like sustainable development, climate change and development cooperation and chose to act on this interest by volunteering for socio-ecological NGO’s like Oxfam, 11.11.11 and Natuurpunt.
Rikkert is currently working as a Research Intern at GGKP, working on a variety of projects including helping in the organization of the GGKP’s Third Annual Conference to be held in January 2015. He is excited to be a part of the GGKP-team and looking forward to getting involved in any way he can.