John Van Thuyne
"The world is not to save; people are to change."
John Van Thuyne finished school in Lausanne at the age of 18, then spent two years travelling in India, Tibet and China. He then moved to London, where he worked for The Guardian newspaper. At the same time, he became a member of the Royal Geographical Society. Back in Switzerland, he began working as a freelance advertising representative for The New York Times.
After 15 years in advertising, he decided to stop working and devote the next few years of his life to understanding the geophysical workings of our planet. So, at the age of 35, he went to study geosciences at the University of Lausanne (FGSE). There he obtained a bachelor's degree in environmental sciences and a master's degree in environmental social issues.
Following graduation, he decided to build a research centre in a pristine environment in an environmentally conscious country, Botswana. The Van Thuyne Ridge research centre opened its doors in June 2014. It is an interdisciplinary facility located in the Okavango Delta aimed at researchers wishing to carry out fieldwork in the fields of biology, geology and anthropology.
In 2018, he signed an agreement between the FGSE and our research centre, then between the University of Lausanne and the Botswana International University for Science and Technology (BIUST) and in 2020, a partnership was signed between BIUST and the VTR research centre. In 2022, he will have completed his doctorate in biogeosciences and obtained the title of Doctor of Earth Sciences.