Suzanne Hulscher became head of the group Water Engineering & Management in 2002. She received her PhD from the faculty Physics and Astronomy at Utrecht University in 1996; her PhD subject was modelling of bed patterns in coastal seas. The research was conducted at WL|Delft Hydraulics (now part of DELTARES) and the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU, part of Utrecht University).
Subsequently, she held several scientific positions within the Cluster Civil Engineering & Management at the University of Twente, and occupies the chair Physics of Water Systems from 2002. As a visiting scientist, she worked in Canada and Spain. She won the Minerva award from the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) in 2002. In 2003, she was awarded a VICI grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to investigate roughness modelling for water management applications.
From 2007-2010 Hulscher joined the board of the Dutch Innovation Platform, chaired by Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. From 2009-2012 professor Hulscher was a member of the national committee for innovation in the sciences (the so-called ‘Commissie van Wijzen’ or ‘committee of learned persons’).