Marleen de Ruiter is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Water and Climate Risk at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on improving the modeling of multi-hazard risk, multi-hazard risk early warning systems, disaster risk reduction, and the temporal dynamics of disaster vulnerability.
She is an expert on consecutive disasters and systemic risk, currently serving as the co-chair of the RiskKAN network and co-leading the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute (ASI) cluster on Natural Hazards & Society. In 2024, she was honored with the EGU Natural Hazards Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist award.
Research and projects
Her research focuses on the intersection of multi-hazard modeling, early warning systems, and disaster risk reduction. Her current research focuses on:
- Consecutive Disasters: As an NWO Veni Laureate (2024–2029), she leads a project investigating global consecutive disasters followed by water-borne disease outbreaks using Dynamic Bayesian Networks.
- Multi-Hazard Risk: She recently contributed to the development of a multi-hazard concept report and led a Special Issue in NHESS on methodological advances in the field.
- Current Projects: She is a member of the TOGETHER project and co-leads the ANTICIPATE CostAction Working Group on multi-hazard early warning products. She previously managed the EU H2020 project MYRIAD-EU.
- Serious Gaming: She developed the Breaking the Silos game to help stakeholders understand multi-hazard management, which is now available to play online.
Education, teaching and supervision
Marleen is the Programme Coordinator for the MSc Earth Sciences and its specialization in Global Environmental Change & Policy (GECP) at VU Amsterdam. Her teaching and supervision activities include:
- Course Coordination: Methods of Global Environmental Change (AM_1236).
- Student Supervision: She supervises several BSc, MSc, and PhD students on topics related to multi-hazard risk and disaster resilience.
- Ambassador for the Burning Lowlands VU Dream Team, leading a transdisciplinary student team on wildfire risk.
- Co-developer of the Climate Econometrics master specialization.
Editorial roles
- Editor: Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) and International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction(IJDRR).
- Associate Editor: Earth’s Future.
- Guest Editor: Currently leading a new Special Issue at NHESS on the challenges of the complex interactions between natural hazards, health systems, disease outbreaks, and societal health.
Awards
- EGU Natural Hazards Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist (2024)
- Wiley’s Earth’s Future Most Cited Paper Award
- American Geosciences Union (AGU) Outstanding Student Presentation Award
Expertise
Consecutive disasters, multi-hazard risk, risk and vulnerability assessments, (asynergies of) DRR measures, and post-disaster community recovery.
