Dr. Gülden Yımaz
Director of the Healthy and Safe Food Systems Program
Wageningen University and Research
Dr. Gülden Yımaz is working currently as director of the Healthy and Safe Food Systems Program in Wageningen University and Research.
She has obtained her engineering degree from Istanbul Technical University in food engineering and her PhD from Utrecht University in polymer technology. Her current responsibilities involve coordination of the strategic development, development initiatives and funds, as well as knowledge management within the field of healthy and safe food systems.
Gulden has over 20 years of experience in applied research in a wide range of areas. She has played a significant role in facilitating regional innovation in the field of Biobased Economy in several positions. She been the chairperson of the of the program board at Gelderland Transition Center. Her role in this position involved facilitating the transition process towards a Biobased Economy via identification and facilitation of high potential projects and programs. Furthermore, she is initiator and facilitator of Bioeconomy Innovation Cluster East Netherlands; a cooperation platform for stakeholders that are active in the Biobased Economy. Until 2016 she has been acting as the coordinator and innovation manager for Bioeconomy Innovation Cluster East Netherlands.
Her more recent activities involve program management in the area of biorefinery and Biobased products. In this role her responsibilities have been consisting of coordination of new business initiatives, knowledge management and coordination of ongoing research activities.
Her activities and interests involve being at the interface with research, strategy development and clustering as well as facilities development through programmatic approaches in a multi-stakeholder environment and multiple networks.