Maaike KroonMaaike Kroon was born on December 31st, 1980 in Rotterdam. She spent her childhood in the small village of Numansdorp. After completing her primary and secondary education, she went on to study chemical engineering at the Delft University of Technology in 1999. She obtained her propaedeutics cum laude in one year, for which she received the CIVI-price of encouragement 2000, and a propaedeutics prize of TU Delft. In the year 2002/2003, she worked for one year outside the university, performing her conceptual process design at Shell in Amsterdam, her research practical at Purac in Gorinchem and her internship at Toshiba in Tokyo. In 2004, she graduated cum laude for her Master project on the thermodynamics of ionic liquids + carbon dioxide systems under supervision of dr. ir. C. J. Peters and prof. dr. G. J. Witkamp. Half a year later, she also graduated cum laude for her honor’s track in innovation management under supervision of prof. dr. ir. A. J. Berkhout. For her Master’s research project, she obtained the prize of the best Master graduate of the faculty of Applied Sciences 2004/2005, the best Master graduate of the Delft University of Technology 2004/2005, the Unilever research prize 2005, the study prize of the Bataafsch Genootschap der Proefondervindelijke Wijsbegeerte 2004/2006 and admission as participant to the meeting of Nobel prize winners in chemistry in Lindau (2006). In September 2004 she started working on her PhD at the Delft University of Technology, also under supervision of dr. C. J. Peters and prof. dr. G. J. Witkamp. During this time she developed a new type of chemical processing using ionic liquids and carbon dioxide, based on the knowledge obtained during her Master research. This project resulted in a patent and 11 publications in high-ranking journals. In December 2006, she successfully defended her PhD thesis, also cum laude, for which she received the DSM-award 2007, northern region (Netherlands, Belgium, Germany). Currently, she has a tenure track position at the faculty of mechanical, maritime and materials engineering at the Delft University of Technology, where she is doing research on the development of novel nanomaterials for energy-efficient processing and for sustainable energy storage, partly taking place at the Institute of Materials Sciences in Barcelona, and at Stanford University in Palo Alto.
Wendy Mao - Assistant Professor
George Amulele
Maaike Kroon