Niko Wanders (1986) holds a position as assistant professor at the Natural Hazards & Geocomputation group at the department of Physical Geography at Utrecht University. He obtained a Bachelor of Science (BSc, 2009) and Master of Science (MSc, 2011) in hydrology from Wageningen University, a PhD in Physical Geography from Utrecht University (2015) and became assistant Professor in 2017 after a two-year Postdoc position at Princeton University. During his MSc education he worked on three European Commission projects related to drought: EC-WATCH, EC-XEROCHORE and Drought-R&SPI. In 2011 He started as a PhD researcher at the Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences at Utrecht University. He worked on improving near real-time flood forecasting with satellite soil moisture observations using Bayesian data assimilation techniques. Results of his PhD study are implemented in the European Flood Awareness System of the EC-Joint Research Centre and contribute to improved flood forecasting. In 2015 he received a personal NWO-Rubicon fellowship to finance his research for the coming two years. During his Rubicon fellowship he developed a seasonal drought forecasting system at Princeton University. Currently, Niko has a position as assistant professor hydrological extremes at the department of Physical Geography where he works on topics related to hydrological drought, flood forecasting, hyper-resolution modelling, satellite data assimilation and seasonal forecasting. In 2017, he was awarded a NWO-VENI grant to support his research on the impacts of human reservoir management on drought in large-scale river basins. He received the 2018 NWO-Vening Meinesz award for his research into the predictability into floods and droughts on weekly, seasonal and decadel timescales. In 2019 he was awarded the Utrecht University PubliPrice for excellence in science communication on the topic of drought and climate change. He was awarded the KNAW early career award in 2020 for his groundbreaking research into the predictions of large-scale floods and droughts. In 2020, he was awarded the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Hydrology Early Career award for his research on climate change and its impacts on hydrology. His drought research has resulted in a strong knowledge utilization background, attracting large coverage in (inter)national media, interaction with policy makers and water managers both in the Netherland and abroad. Niko has been strongly involved in the scientific community acting as reviewer, editor of Hydrology and Earth System Science and EC representative of the Dutch Centre for Hydrology. He is also an active member of the Utrecht Young Academy, to support effort to increase diversity and multi-disciplinarity.