Ester van der Voet obtained her MSc as a biologist in 1982 at Leiden University. Her first job was with the Centre of Energy Conservation, evaluating the consequences of energy scenarios on the natural environment. Since 1984 she has been employed at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University. She has conducted research in the Industrial Ecology field. Research areas are, among others: risk assessment, life-cycle assessment, indicator development, material flow accounting, and especially substance flow analysis. In this last field she obtained her PhD in 1996. Her research presently focuses on resource efficiency, impacts of resource use and resource scarcity. She is now an Associate Professor and has initiated two MSc programs in Industrial Ecology: an interuniversity program between Leiden University and Delft University of Technology, and an international Erasmus Mundus program with universities from Austria, Sweden, Japan, Thailand and the USA. She is a member of the UNEP International Resource Panel, where she has edited the third report of the Global Metal Flows working group.