Josephine was born in The Netherlands but was raised mainly in China and Korea, where her interest in alleviating environmental issues grew. This interest led her to pursue a Master’s in Chemistry with Environmental and Sustainable Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, where she worked on understanding the transport mechanisms of zinc, cadmium and lead in mining-impacts soils and spoils. A Master’s in Environmental Sciences at Wageningen University followed this introduction to biogeochemical cycling and she wrote her thesis in Wageningen on modelling the immobilization of zinc in agricultural soils.
The multidisciplinary outlook of her degree in environmental sciences combined with the specialized skills gained in her environmental chemistry degree brought her to the RECAP program, where she will take on the development of ESR 7: ‘Fertilizer value of recovered phosphorous products’. Throughout this project, Josephine hopes to make meaningful contributions to understanding the plant availability of the phosphorus recovery products when applied to varying soils, as well as the risks of this phosphorus being lost to the environment. Josephine therefore hopes to use this valuable opportunity to contribute to sustainable transitions in agriculture.
