Aveen Colgan
Aveen is co-founder & director of the Green Living Lab. She is an advocate for more restorative natural spaces in the city for a healthy population. She loves to design interactive experiences in nature for all generations, and creates the GLL’s programmes, including the Green Student Bootcamp Challenge and Paradise Earth, to encourage connection with nature in the city.
Kristina Kalpaklieva
Kristina is a creative copywriter and amateur artist. Inspired by the Green Living Lab and its spirit of positivity and connection, she contributes blog content and leads “Art in Nature” workshops for children by age or at heart.
Sameena Safiruddin
Sameena is a nature educator, artist and permaculture designer with a deep love and reverence for the beauty and intelligence of nature. She creates and leads workshops for the Green Living Lab on diverse themes including nature-based crafts, music, urban gardening, foraging and wild cooking.
Maggie Mulley
Maggie first visited us when she came to study at the Green Living Library, and she then took part in the Green Student Bootcamp Challenge 2017. She now organises diverse events including community crafting afternoons, and she designs and leads sensory nature connection workshops.
Gabi Figueiredo
Gabi loved to study in the dome on Green Living Library days and then ended up organising and planning diverse GLL events. She is a proud graduate of the Green Student Bootcamp Challenge 2018 and now co-ordinates our team of volunteers...
Nina Poort
Nina recently graduated from Amsterdam University College in biomedical sciences. Her passion to work in sustainability led her to volunteer with the GLL, where she helps us with everything from concept development for events to co-writing stories about dragonflies and kingfishers! "I joined the Green Living Lab to strengthen my own connection with nature and to help others (re)discover theirs."
Gabriela Dankova
Gabriela is Czech and has been living in Rotterdam since 2017, where she is a PhD candidate of molecular biology at the Erasmus Medical Centre. She grew up in the east of the Czech Republic, in a small village on the edge of a forest. Regular walks through the forest from an early age created her strong bond with nature. She had been missing connection with nature while living in the city and joined the GLL in her quest to find ways to reconnect and to help others to do the same. "I believe that being surrounded by nature helps people to relax and feel better. It definitely helps me handle the stresses of city living."
Hannah Wright
Hannah is an integrative urban planner who researches planning solutions for a healthy city. She led Arup’s ‘Cities Alive: Designing for Urban Childhoods’ project, and is an international advisor to the Urban95 initiative which invites designers to reimagine the city from a child’s perspective...
Arthur de Smidt
Arthur is a co-founder of the Green Living Lab. He loves to bring people together to "leave a green trace" and his work with the Green Co-creations foundation includes mass tree plantings at festivals, an interactive sunflower maze and experiments in growing quinoa across the city of Amsterdam...
Hanna Gruteke
Hanna is a 2018 graduate of our Green Student Bootcamp Challenge programme, and now assists with the programme’s co-ordination. She is a student of Criminology at the VU University Amsterdam, where she specialises in environmental and international crime...
Sheila de Leeuw
Sheila came to the Green Living Lab to take part in the Green Student Bootcamp Challenge in 2017. Since then she has led crafting workshops and organised study days and events including the Green Fashion Fair.
Roos van der Deijl
Roos took part in our first Green Student Bootcamp Challenge in 2016 while she was studying Neuroscience at the VU, and this inspired her to refocus her career. She is now studying a MSc in Future Planet Ecosystem Sciences at the University of Amsterdam and works for Commonland, an organisation focused on building a restoration economy...
Daniel Sagath
Daniel is a PhD researcher at the VU University Amsterdam, investigating innovation and entrepreneurship in outer space. He grew up close to nature in Slovakia where he learned the art of weaving willow and building structures with organic materials.
Lea Grosse
Lea took part in the first Green Student Bootcamp Challenge in 2016 while studying Psychology at the VU. She became a core member of our team, leading workshops on diverse topics including composting and laughter yoga. Now studying a Masters in Environmental Psychology at the University of Groningen, Lea will co-host this year’s GSBC session in Groningen...
Manon Danker
Manon is a sociologist & ecologist who has worked in nature reserves in Indonesia & Peru. She now works to promote nature connection and education in The Netherlands.