Merel Roelands is a PhD candidate at the Department of Multi-Actor Systems of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management and the Delft University of Technology. She holds a Master’s degree in Development Economics from Wageningen University & Research and a Master’s degree in Climate Econometrics from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She has also worked as a research intern at the World Resources Institute and the Beyond Beans Foundation.

As part of the ERC-funded SPHINX project, Merel’s PhD research focuses on how local physical climate risks can cascade into systemic risks across Europe, and whether adaptation strategies can help prevent this. She uses computable general equilibrium models and explores how these can be linked with bottom-up agent-based models to capture changing expectations of households, firms, and governments.

Before starting her PhD, Merel worked as a researcher in the SC3 team in collaboration with PBL, where she investigated regional cohesion in the EU and the costs of inaction on climate change in the Netherlands. Outside of work, Merel enjoys running and practicing yoga. She also loves cooking and baking, and spending time with friends over a drink.