Anne van Loon is an Associate Professor in Drought Risk within the Water & Climate Risk group at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands). She is a hydrologist and interdisciplinary drought risk scientist, interested in the relationship between water, people and the environment. Most of her research is located in Southern and Eastern Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Before starting at VU Amsterdam, Anne was a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham (UK), working on water management, drought and resilience. She did a PhD and postdoc at Wageningen University (the Netherlands) on drought propagation and impacts, and worked at FutureWater on projects related to water management modelling in Kenya, Turkey and the Netherlands.

In DOWN2EARTH, Anne will lead research on the social dimensions and human dynamics of climate change adaptation and resilience. With colleagues at IVM, she will work on increasing our understanding of the interactions between drought and society in the Horn of Africa Drylands. This research will focus on drought impacts, drought adaptation and responses, and the influence of human interventions on hydrological drought. She will also co-lead the Policy Development team and supervise PhD researchers Ileen Streefkerk and Rhoda Odongo, based at IVM.