Eva Kuijpers is a PhD candidate at the Freudenthal Institute (Science Education) and the Department of Developmental Psychology (Child and Adolescent Studies) at Utrecht University. She obtained an NWO Teacher Grant for PhD Candidates (Lerarenbeurs Promoveren) to conduct her doctoral research on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in primary teacher education. 

Eva Kuijpers has a background as a primary school teacher and holds a Master's degree in Educational Sciences from the Open University. For her master's thesis, she conducted a randomized controlled trial in collaboration with the Teaching Systems Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), testing the effects of playing Meta-Rubric on the self-efficacy of primary school teachers in formative assessment.

Her PhD project is titled A World to Win with Education for Sustainability: Enhancing Student Teachers' Professional Action Competence. She investigates the development of Professional Action Competence (PAC) in Education for Sustainable Development among student teachers during the first three years of their teacher education programme, which factors influence this development, and how students' value orientations can be seen as a moderator of this development. In this research, the central question is how teacher education can strengthen the professional action competence of student teachers, enabling them to design and implement meaningful, critical, and hopeful Education for Sustainable Development, and thereby prepare future generations for the challenges of their time.

Eva collaborates closely with stakeholders in primary teacher education (PABO), primary schools, and social partners in Education for Sustainable Development. Her PhD is conducted in collaboration with the Marnix Academy (PABO), where she initially developed her research proposal.

Eva is also engaged in the UU Pathways to Sustainability community and received a Community Fund grant to disseminate her research findings and strengthen collaboration with the wider community. In addition to her research, Eva teaches at the Marnix Academy, where she educates future primary school teachers in courses on social entrepreneurship education as an active form of citizenship education.