Andres joined IHE in 2021 to work as senior lecturer Water, Urbanization and Climate Justice. He is trained as a social scientist and water engineer and is currently also visiting researcher at the department of human geography and spatial planning of Utrecht University.
In research Andres is interested in exploring questions of water justice and sustainability, in particular around the ontological tensions between indigenous knowledges and techno-scientific ways of knowing. In his work on and with grassroots initiatives he fosters an attitude of joint-learning and mobilizes insights of political ecology and actor-network theory to study the ways in which (scientific) knowledges and (policy) discourses endorse specific kinds of development that, at times, cause friction with local water practices and realities. His personal project, in that sense, is about (re-)appreciating and nurturing other possible ways of understanding water that can bring about more symmetrical conversations between varied, sometimes divergent, forms of knowing.
For 15 years, Andres has been involved in education and training of students, water professionals and grassroots leaders in the fields of irrigation and water governance in both the Andean countries and Asian deltas. More recently he is working on the water concerns of local stakeholders in the Nile Basin.