Leon van Paassen is an expert on Biogeotechnics, with more than 20 years of experience in academia and industry. He has investigated and scaled up several bio-based ground improvement methods from laboratory concept to full scale application and is author of more than 80 peer-reviewed papers in journals and conference proceedings. He currently works at Boskalis, a large dredging contractor and marine service provider based in The Netherlands, where he is involved in large land reclamation and offshore installation projects all over the world. He is also an adjunct professor and senior investigator for the Center for bio-mediated and Bio-Inspired Geotechnics at Arizona State University.