Christophe Van Neste

Biodiversity Researcher & Coffee Scientist Department: Herbarium Contact: christophe.vanneste@plantentuinmeise.be  Phone: +32 0490 68 22 55 ORCID | Google Scholar | ResearchGate | LinkedIn

My work focuses on the scientific study of biodiversity, mainly predicting where plant species and interacting species are occurring and how that is being influenced by climate change. Next to predicting where they might be occurring, I also work on predicting where they are coming from, mainly forest risk commodities in the context of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). As a special genus that carries my interest, you could say I am addicted to Coffea: from its agricultural origins and botanical diversity to its chemical composition, roasting behaviour, and sensory expression. My future aim is to combine field research, herbarium‑based inquiry, and analytical chemistry to trace coffee provenance and understand how environmental, genetic, and processing factors shape cup quality, and how coffee can be enjoyed sustainably.

After office hours, I develop educational resources that translate complex concepts into accessible narratives, including a Critical Coffee Considerations series on YouTube. In my role of moonlighting as a coffee roaster, I also reach out to fellow roasters and coffee importers to collaborate on sustainable specialty coffee production, helping businesses integrate biodiversity insights into daily practices for a better tomorrow.

Qualifications
Degrees

• PhD, Ghent University, 2015
• MSc, Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 2010
• MSc, Ghent University, 2008
   

Employment History

• Biodiversity Scientist, Meise Botanic Garden: Research on species distribution, coffee origins, and analytical chemistry, 2023 - present
• Founder & Roaster, Critical Beans IT: Specialty coffee roasting and IT solutions, 2024 - present
• R&D genetic database developer, Biostrand NV, 2021-2023
• Computation biology scientist, KAUST, AI and machine learning for bioinformatics, 2018- 2020
• Postdoc cancer research, UZ Ghent, pediatric cancer, 2015-2021
• PhD DNA forensics, Ghent University, 2011-2015
   

Projects

• Meise Crop Source Investigations
  Tracing coffee and Forest Risk commodity origins through botanical and chemical evidence. Integrating herbarium specimens, field observations, and analytical chemistry to map coffee provenance.
• GUARDEN
  Safeguarding biodiversity for policy makers by making species distribution models and integrating species interaction knowedge
• B-Cubed
  Cloud infrastructure development for biodiversity analysis using data cubes of species occurrences.

Professional Activities

• Development of standard operating procedures for microwave digestion and ICP-OES analysis
• Full-stack engineer
• Reviewer and contributor to interdisciplinary discussions on (biodiversity) forensics
• Public speaking and training on biodiversity and coffee science

Publications
FRIS Research Portal