I am the Head of the Spatial Planning Section in the Human Geography and Spatial Planning department at Utrecht University. I have a passion and reputation for innovative research and teaching in Urban and Regional Development. I try to creatively combine insights from urban planning, economic and urban geography, politics, public management, regional science, urban economics, cultural geography, media studies, tourism geography, regional studies and policy sciences. Much of my work aims to develop empirically underpinned territorial strategies that make cities and regions more sustainable and better able to satisfy human and societal needs. Key themes I am focusing on include:

• Institutional, Behavioural and Network perspectives on (uneven) urban and regional development;
• The sustainable evolution of tourist destinations/Tourism Geography
• Electoral Geography, Geography of Discontent and Spatially Distributive Politics
• Metropolisation (‘metropoolvorming’): the process through which institutionally, functionally and spatially fragmented urbanised regions integrate and emerge as connected systems at a higher spatial scale;
• Metropolitan governance;
• Systems of cities, with a particular focus on Polycentric Urban Regions (e.g. Randstad); 
• Spatial distribution of retail, amenities and  urban functions more generally;
• Theorizing on ‘borrowed size’ / 'agglomeration shadows’;
• Territorial identities and place-making;
• Methodologically, I am very interested in the possibilities of data science in answering geographic questions.
• Geographically, my focus mostly is on Europe, the Netherlands and am particularly also interested in Delta Regions.

I am committed to knowledge dissemination through actively seeking co-operation with communities, governments, industry and other scholars. My work has appeared in many different journals and books, and has attracted attention in academia and policy practice. I have obtained many larger and smaller research grants, including the highly-competed for VENI and VIDI personal grants, and have a track record in leading research teams. In the Elsevier/Stanford most highly-cited scholar ranking, I am listed as top-cited author in the fields of ‘urban and regional planning’ and ‘geography’. Before coming to Utrecht in 2021, I was employed at Delft University of Technology, where I acted as the research director of the Urbanism department. I was also previously associated with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions as educator and PI. Also, I served two terms as Director/Trustee of the Urban Studies Foundation.