‘After studying civil engineering, I had a choice of different offers. Three years ago, I opted for Deltares (which was WL | Delft Hydraulics at the time) because I wanted to go into the subject matter in more depth. A lot of young people work here, but there are also experienced specialists. You work on projects in teams, but even when you don't, you can always turn to your colleagues for advice. Every project involves a new problem and a new challenge. It's never a question of doing the same old trick.

I specialise in offshore scouring. At the moment, we're working on a Joint Industry Project. We have found that there is a demand for knowledge from the corporate sector. Deltares is developing the knowledge. We have talked to American and European oil and gas companies, shipyards and designers who want to participate in the project. We will be exploring the Asian market soon.

We also work closer to home. In the Netherlands, we are looking at scour in wind energy farms in the North Sea. At the Egmond site, we are working on a five-year study of the behaviour of the bed protection around the offshore wind turbine piles. The results will allow us to make improvements to the design formulae for bed protection around piles. We are also working on physical model studies for structures with complex forms such as the legs of movable drilling platforms. We make these structures in transparent form so that we can monitor the scour patterns from the inside with cameras.

Another part of the work that I enjoy is the combined opportunities: you can develop things in a specialised way, working in depth, but have a broad approach at the same time by tackling different types of projects.

Sometimes, you are literally up to your knees in water, and at other times you are working at a computer with digital wave, current and water-quality models, or sitting down to talk to clients.’