Meet the team

Dr. ir. Karolien Vanbroekhoven, is Research Manager sustainable chemistry at VITO. She joined VITO in 2002 after her PhD in BioEngineering from KULeuven and has a lot of experience in managing various national/international projects. Up to 2018 she was a program manager leading the bioprocess and electrochemistry teams at the business unit Separation and Conversion Technology. Her focus areas of R&D are biobased economy, biomass valorisation, and bioprocess development. Recently, she coordinates the technology development within the program of sustainable chemistry, with main focus areas on new value chains from renewable and recycled feedstock and sustainable industrial process development. Mainly active in strategy development and implementation, a.o. technology development, building strategic collaborations, technology watch. She also leads the research theme on bioaromatics and is on the board of the shared research centre ‘Biorizon’ initiated by VITO, TNO and the Green Chemistry Campus. She has >6200 citations (current H-index- 38, Google scholar).

Dr. Kathy Elst- holds a PhD in Physics (1993) and worked as a project manager in a chemical company on the development of tailored light-sensitive crystals by new precipitation processes. She joined VITO at 2001 and is currently a project manager in SCT. Her main research field involves the development of processes to separate and purify added value components from different types of biomass streams, including biomass waste/side streams and algae. Her main focus is on the application of green solvents and innovative pressurized processes. Kathy Elst was involved in several scientific and industrial research projects and was group leader and/or WP-leader in several EU-projects (Prospare, Bioconcept, Sayogh, Noshan, iAlgaePro) and regional projects. Kathy Elst has a large experience in performing and protecting innovative technology development. During her career she authored many US, EU and JP patents and patent applications (20 patent families). She is author/co-author of more than 40 SCI-publications.

Dr. Sandra Corderí Gándara obtained a master’s degree in Analytical Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Vigo (Spain), where she specialized in innovative  separation processes using ionic liquids. She continued her career in the Sustainable Process Technology group at the University of Twente (The Netherlands) developing efficient processes for the separation of chiral molecules and aliphatic/oxygenates streams. In May 2019, she joined the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO) and has been involved in several R&D projects in the fields of lignin downstream processing (fractionation, solubilization, purification, depolymerization) and plastics recycling.

Dr. ir. Richard Vendamme, Senior Research Scientist, PhD, obtained an engineering degree and a master's degree in chemistry in Lille (France) in 2001. He subsequently moved to the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz (Germany), where he prepared his PhD working on stimuli-responsive liquid crystalline gels. In 2004 he was awarded a JSPS postdoctoral fellowship and started his career at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in Japan. In 2007, he joined the European headquarter of Nitto Denko, one of Japan’s leading diversified materials manufacturers, where he was successively involved in R&D, innovation, and techno-marketing. He is working at VITO since April 2017 in the field of bio-aromatics and bio-polymer development, where he recently built a team of +/- 10 researchers (incl postdocs, PhD’s). Richard is author of 18 scientific publications, 10 patents, and also holds an executive MBA from Vlerick business school.

Dr. ir. Maarten Rubens has a master's degree in chemical engineering (2016) from the Technical University of Eindhoven and a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry (2020) from Hasselt University. During his Ph.D., he spent 3 years at Monash University, Australia in the group of prof. T. Junkers working on implement flow technology for precision polymer engineering of polyacrylates. Currently, he is pursuing a post-doc in the Flemish Institute for Technological Research in the field of bio-aromatics and sustainable polymer development. He is (co-) author of 13 peer-reviewed scientific publications in the field of acrylic polymers and flow chemistry. 

Dr. Paul Jusner obtained a master’s degree in Wood Technology and Management in 2018 at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) and received his PhD upon completion of the doctoral program Advanced Biorefineries: Chemistry and Materials in 2022. From 2017 to 2022, he was a member of the Institute of Chemistry of Renewable Resources at BOKU university. During that time, he was working on the chemical modification of cellulose fibers, the characterization of lignocellulosic biomass and the safe utilization of biomass processing agents. In 2023, Paul joined VITO as a postdoctoral researcher where he will be working on the depolymerization and solubilization of lignin.

Dr. Miet Van Dael is a research scientist at VITO. She obtained her PhD in Applied Economics at Hasselt University, Belgium in 2014. She joined VITO in 2013. Till 2017 she worked at VITO (50%) and combined this with a post-doc position (50%) at the Hasselt University. Since 2017 she works fulltime at VITO as an economic researcher in the unit of Separation and Conversion Technology. Furthermore, she is a research affiliate in the environmental economics group at the Hasselt and Antwerp University. Her main field of expertise is techno-economic assessments. As a researcher her ambitions are to further integrate techno-economic assessments with an environmental and social impact, make the methodology spatially explicit and link it with the acceptance of the assessed technologies. In doing so, her main fields of interest are biorefineries and CCU technologies.

Dr. ir. Marlies Thys holds a master's degree in Chemical Engineering with a specialization in Molecular Systems and Materials Chemistry from Eindhoven University of Technology. She pursued her PhD on bioderived adaptive networks through a collaboration between Vrije Universiteit Brussel and VITO, under the supervision of Prof. Niko Van den Brande and Richard Vendamme. After successfully defending her PhD in October 2023, she remained at VITO as a researcher, focusing on advancing the development of biobased and/or reversible materials.

Dr. Sofie Houben obtained her master’s degree in chemistry from the KU Leuven in 2018. During her PhD in the Advanced Functional Polymers group at Hasselt University (2023), she worked on the design and characterization of though interpenetrating network hydrogels for tissue engineering applications. In 2023 she joined SPOT team in VITO as a post-doctoral researcher working on the chemical recycling of plastics.

Frédérique Clifton (MSc) recently obtained her master’s degree in Molecular Chemistry at the Radboud University in Nijmegen (August 2023). At the University she specialised in Synthetic Organic Synthesis in the group of Prof. Dr. Floris Rutjes. After completing her graduation internship at the Green Chemistry Campus with VITO, she officially joined the SPOT team in Mol as a lab researcher to continue her work on the synthesis of renewable aromatic building blocks starting from amino acids.

Ir. Roel Vleeschouwers - Business Development Manager at VITO in the field of Sustainable Chemistry. Master in Bioscience Engineering at the University of Leuven, Belgium Graduated at KULeuven in applied biological and chemical sciences as engineer in 1993. He is responsible for the business development and valorisation of the developed  innovative technologies and applications in the field of sustainable chemistry, with a specific focus on using biomass as alternative feedstocks. He is expert in the field of membrane technology with over more than 20 years of experience and co-author of several publications in this field. Within the Biorizon shared research center he is responsible for the business development and valorisation of the Lignin Horizon towards implementation of industrial scale production of bioaromatics from lignin as well as the implementation of industrial application using these bioaromatics fractions.   He has recently participated as an invited speaker at top conferences in biomass valorisation (EFIB, WorldBioMarket, OSN2019, PlantBasedSummit2019).

Dr. ir. Carlos Marquez obtained his Bachelor and his Master’s degree from La Universidad del Zulia, Venezuela in 2015 (Summa Cum Laude). Later that year, he joined Prof. Dirk De Vos’ group at KU Leuven as a PhD student under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action ITN DEFNET, focusing on the engineered design of double metal cyanides as heterogeneous catalysts for organic reactions. After finishing his PhD, he started working as a postdoctoral fellow in the same group, with an active involvement on different projects about recycling and revalorization of plastic waste. In 2024, he joined the Sustainable Polymer Technologies team at VITO to work on the chemical recycling of oxygen containing plastics.

Dr. Johan Van hunsel holds a PhD degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of Anwerp. He joined the Agfa-Gevaert Group in Mortsel (Belgium) (more specifically its Graphic Systems Division) in 1989 and has held several (leading) positions during his 33 years of career with this company. Johan started as a R&D project and program manager, working on the development and testing of new digital lithographic printing plates and the according pre-press systems. This work led to the filing of more than 30 patent applications and research disclosures. He went on to hold several technical product management functions within Agfa Graphics N.V. After a number of years in more managerial positions, he returned to R&D and eventually became part (and eventually head) of Agfa Graphics’ Technology & Innovation Office, where he assumed patent liaison and technology intelligence manager roles for all of Agfa Graphics’ R&D activities in both offset and digital (inkjet) printing. In these roles he gained a lot of experience with patent filing proceedings (and the necessary preparative steps), active patent portfolio management, infringement and litigation proceedings and finally also selling of patents. Johan left Agfa N.V. in April 2022 and has worked ever since as a technical writer and consultant for the graphic arts industry. In 2023 he worked for 7 months as a stakeholder relations officer - research & innovation for the Association of Flemish Universities of Applied Sciences.