Meine van Noordwijk is currently a Distinguished Research Fellow at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), after retiring in mid-2017 from his Chief Scientist role. He also is Professor of Agroforestry at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Trained as a biologist, his research has ranged from details of soil-plant interactions, via ecosystem service consequences of land-use change in tropical forest margins, to his current interest in the full hydrological cycle and coleadership of the Global Forest Expert Panel (GFEP) forest and water assessment.