About us
The team
Dr. Stefanie Ypma
Stefanie works as a postdoctoral researcher on the Galapagos Plastic Free Project at Utrecht University. She studies the different pathways of marine plastics near the Galapagos Islands and contributes to the development of the predictive clean-up tool. All progress and news on the project will be blogged by her on this website.
Erik is an oceanographer and climate scientist. His research focuses on how ocean currents transport heat, nutrients, marine organisms and plastic litter. With his team, he builds computer models to simulate the transport of this ‘stuff’ in the ocean.
Dr. Nieske Vergunst
Nieske works in science communications. She helps boost the project’s impact by spotting opportunities and making connections between researchers, the general public, journalists, editors, social media, content creators, and different stakeholders within the university.
Johanna Bürkert
Johanna is a master student at the faculty of law of Utrecht University. She did research on the legal frameworks surrounding marine pollution on the Galapagos Islands and writes blogs on everything law and governance related on this website.
Quinten Bohte
Quinten is a master student at the faculty of science of Utrecht University. He investigates how the pathways of plastic connect the different Galapagos Islands applying network theory. This way we can find target locations where clean up activities will have most impact.
Ina Nagler
Ina is a master student at the faculty of science of Utrecht University. She investigates the pathway of marine debris arriving at the Galapagos Islands from marine activity, by improving our understanding of the movement of fishing fleet in the Eastern South Pacific.
Jiongqiu Ren
Jiongqiu is a master student at the faculty of science of Utrecht University. He investigates the pathway of marine debris arriving at the Galapagos Islands from mainland sources.
Sophie van Mil
Sophie is a master student at the faculty of science of Utrecht University. She studies the various aspects of the drifter data, including when and where beaching occurs most regularly to ultimately improve the parameterisations used in our particle behavior models.
Our collaborators
Prof. Dr. Alberto Naveira Garabato
Alberto is Professor of Physical Oceanography within Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton at the University of Southampton.
Dr. Alexander Forryan
Alex is Research Fellow within Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton at the University of Southampton.
Andy Donnelly
Andy is a Lead Flagship Programmes Consultant for the Galapagos Conservation Trust.
Jen Jones
Jen is a projects manager at the Galapagos Conservation Trust and a PhD student at the university of Exeter investigating the impacts of microplastics on the Galapagos marine food web.
Inti Keith
Inti is a senior marine biologist at the Charles Darwin Foundation studying marine invasive species and plastics as possible vectors for the introduction of marine invasive species into the Galapagos Marine Reserve.
Jenifer Suarez
Jenifer is Galapagos National Park ranger who works on plastic pollution in the Galapagos Marine Reserve.