Ir. Liza Groenendijk is a graduated tropical forest engineer from Wageningen Research University where she graduated in 1982. She worked for many years as a lecturer at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, involved in teaching and research in the fields of tree taxonomy (with an emphasis on indigenous knowledge), social forestry and agro forestry. In 1991 she started her work at ITC and where she became lecturer and director of studies of the Forestry for Rural Development post-graduate course.
The Forestry for Rural Development course was based on an experience-based learning methodology. Through in-house and external training, Liza Groenendijk specialized herself in this learning methodology. Therefore, in 1993, she became involved in the development, management and lecturing of the multi-disciplinary first module of the Natural Resource Management MSc and postgraduate course; a module still being offered based on the same learning principles.
In 2000 she moved form the Forestry Division to the Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-information Management Department (initially the Social Science Division). For the department she wrote the special lecture notes "Planning and Management Tools", based on which she lectured 'Problem Analysis and Problem Structuring', 'Public involvement', 'Stakeholder analysis' and 'Project Formulation and International Funding'.
From 2005 till 2009 she was member of the ITC Project group e-Learning. In 2008 she organized the International Workshop: Sharing good practices: e-Learning in Surveying, Geo-information Sciences and Land Administration. In 2007 she was asked to join the Management Team of the Department as the Education Portfolio Manager.
The last years she is involved in the MSc and post-graduate course Land Administration. She is the portfolio holder Eastern Africa of the UNU School of Land Administration studies. Recently she started her PhD studies on knowledge creation in land administration in an education setting, based on the interaction of tacit knowledge of (midcareer) students and faculty's generalized knowledge.
Her travels for ITC took her to Australia, Austria, Bolivia, China, Germany, Hungary, Kenya, Mozambique, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand and Vietnam. She is a member of the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) and she chairs Working Group 2.2. (e-Learning), Commission 2 (Professional Education).
