Christel de Bakker won Fulbright Scholarship

Christel de Bakker performs her research in the project “Creating Healthy Environments – Offices”, a public private partnership between Philips Lighting B.V. and the Building Lighting group of TU/e within the Lighting Flagship of the Intelligent Lighting Institute (ILI). Her interest lies in reducing the energy consumption of open-plan offices while maintaining the visual comfort of the occupants.

The Fulbright scholarship will enable Christel to work together with top researchers in the United States on local lighting control strategies. Her research has been focusing on the European context in open office spaces and can now be enhanced to also consider the North American situation.

Christel has already published 3 articles in international peer-reviewed journals. In February she won the sustainability award as well as Bouygues Special Discretionary R&D Award within the COINS grand challenge.

Her PhD-supervisor prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Rosemann is happy: “We are all very proud of Christel. She joined our group just 1.5 years ago and has already accomplished a lot with her research. That she has won this scholarship indicates that her research topic is highly relevant to society, an aim that we have for all our research.”

Christel de Bakker explained: “I did not expect to win this scholarship as I understand that it there is quite some competition. But I am very happy to be given the opportunity to perform some research in the US and to gain more international experience.”

Prof. dr. Ingrid Heynderickx, director of the TU/e Intelligent Lighting Institute, sees great opportunities arising from this scholarship: “It is great to have such highly professional and recognized researchers in the institute. This scholarship allows Christel to extend her research to the US, where she can investigate to what extent human centric lighting solutions for open plan offices can be optimized similarly in the US than in Europe”

Innovation Program Manager Lighting Applications in Philips Lighting Sjoerd Mentink comments: “The world increasingly recognizes the importance of high quality, human centric lighting solutions in modern working environments. It is fantastic that Christel is awarded the scholarship to further advance this field and develop herself. Congratulations!”

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