Hilde Meersman is a doctor in Applied Economics. She is a full professor at the University of Antwerp where she teaches Economics, Introductory Econometrics, Applied Econometrics, Transport Modelling. She is coordinator of TRANSPORTNET-EST, an early stage research training programme funded by the EU under the Sixth Framework Marie Curie Actions Programme. She also teaches at the Technical University of Delft. She is chairing the International Scientific Committee of the WCTRS . Her research activities are on the intersection of transportation economics, macroeconomics and economic modelling. This enables her to link the evolution in the world economy to specific transportation problems. She is involved, directly or indirectly, in a large number of research projects on topics such as international investment, modelling and forecasting commodity transportation, empirical analysis of port competition, inland navigation, mode choice, sustainable mobility, etc. She has been an advisor to the Dutch Central Bank and has been and still is involved in a large number of international exchange programs.