Utrecht University, Department of Earth Sciences

Utrecht University’s Faculty of Geosciences studies the Earth: from the Earth's core to its surface, including man's spatial and material utilisation of the Earth - always with a focus on sustainability and innovation. With a population of 3,400 students (BSc and MSc) and 720 staff, the Faculty is a strong and challenging organisation. The Faculty is organised in four Departments: Earth Sciences, Physical Geography, Sustainable Development, and Human Geography & Spatial Planning.

The Department of Earth Sciences conducts teaching and research across the full range of the solid Earth and environmental Earth sciences, with activities in almost all areas of geology, geochemistry, geophysics, biogeology and hydrogeology. Our key research themes are Earth & Planetary Processes, Sustainable Use of the Subsurface, Planetary Health & Environment, and Climate & Life. The department hosts a highly international tenured staff. We house or have access to a wide variety of world-class laboratories, among which are UU’s Electron Microscopy Centre, the Geolab, and the Earth Simulation Lab. We also have excellent High- Performance Computing facilities and organise a warm welcome for every new member.

The position is embedded in the Stratigraphy & Paleontology group. The group is engaged in multidisciplinary research on the interaction between climate, the oceans, the lithosphere and biosphere. Using chemical and biological proxies, we reconstruct paleoclimates, ecosystem dynamics and evolutionary processes, and refine the geologic time scale by applying an integrated stratigraphic approach. We are particularly interested in constraining the causes of abrupt and cyclic, (sub)orbital-scale, climate change in the past and its relation to life on earth.

About Utrecht

Utrecht is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands with a population of nearly 360,000 and forms a hub in the middle of the country. Its historical city centre and its modern central station can easily be reached from our campus in Utrecht Science Park by public transport or by a 15-minute bicycle ride. Utrecht boasts beautiful canals with extraordinary wharf cellars housing cafés and terraces by the water, as well as a broad variety of shops and boutiques.

Homepage: https://www.uu.nl/geo/aw/

The Department of Earth Sciences is looking for a highly motivated nd versatile PhD candidate with a MSc background in Earth Sciences, Environmental sciences, Biology, Climate physics, Oceanography or other appropriate fields. You will work on the project Eemian sea level. In this 4-year fully funded position, you will combine 2 toolsets: generating proxy data reflecting surface ocean changes, and simulations of sea level changes using comprehensive ice sheet models.

The sea level in the Eemian was much higher than today, 3 to 6 m or even higher. These high sea levels cannot be explained by a complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet, as large parts of it survived the Eemian stage. This implies that the Antarctic ice sheet was also very vulnerable to melting during this period, but little model studies are done on the Antarctic contribution. The aim of this research project is to further investigate the timing of major sea level changes, and thus the contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets during the Eemian by generating high-resolution proxy records from the Dutch subsurface, including the type locality of the Eemian near the city of Amersfoort. Special emphasis will be on the varying background conditions between the Saalian to Eemian transition (i.e., termination II), when large ice sheets formed the Dutch coastline and the adjacent North Sea, and that of the LGM-Holocene transition (i.e., termination I), when large ice caps lay further north. The comparison between these new datasets and experiments with ice sheet models could lead to a better long-term projection of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets in our warming world.

The project is highly multidisciplinary and collaborative. Proxy data will amongst others infer the stable isotope composition of foraminifera and mollusc shells, since not much is known about the changes in temperature and isotopic composition of the waters flooding the Netherlands and other parts of Northwest Europe during past interglacial periods, such as the Eemian. The study is expected to shed new light upon (1) the timing and possible cause of rapid sea level changes during the Eemian, and (2) the complex interactions between global warming, sea level changes, glacial rebound and sediment transport on a more regional scale.

The position is part of the Earth System Feedback Research Centre (EMBRACER), which focuses on the carbon and water cycle feedbacks within the climate system. EMBRACER includes 23 principal scientists from a wide variety of disciplines, from physics, environmental, earth and social sciences in the Netherlands. The EMBRACER community of students and staff will have regular cross-disciplinary meetings, events and lots of opportunities to get in contact with the wide spectrum of climate science. The project will also have close links with Past to Future (P2F), a 4-year Horizon Europe research project which was launched in March 2025, consisting of 24 partners from a wide-range of disciplines in future climate model development, paleo-climate data collection, and applied mathematics.

Training

A personalised training programme will be set up, reflecting your training needs and career objectives. About 20% of your time will be dedicated to this training component, which includes following courses/workshops as well as training on the job in assisting in the Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes of the department at Utrecht University.

Qualifications

The project requires the development of both numerical skills and development of proxy data. You must have completed your MSc degree in Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Biology, Climate Physics or Oceanography or a related discipline. Non-Dutch diploma’s may be subjected to specific approval by the Board for Conferral of Doctoral Degrees, before the candidate can be accepted to the PhD programme.

The project will require:

• Experience or strong interest in paleoclimate/paleoceanography
• Skills in micropaleontology or affinity with microscope work
• Experience in working in a laboratory
• Affinity to coding and programming or willingness to learn
• Versatility and flexibility, to learn new techniques and skillsets
• Capability to independently plan and organize your work, with interest in taking a leading role in its direction
• Adequate social/verbal/communication skills

Due to the international character of our research, good command of spoken and written English is essential. We highly encourage applicants from all members of our community and of diverse backgrounds to join us.

Terms of employment

You will be offered a full-time PhD position, initially for one year with extension to four years in total upon a successful assessment in the first year, and with the specific intent that it results in a doctorate within this period. The gross monthly salary starts with € 3,059 in the first year and increases to € 3,881 in the fourth year of employment with a full-time appointment. Salaries are supplemented with a holiday bonus of 8% and an end-of-year bonus of 8,3% per year. A pension scheme, partially paid parental leave, and flexible employment conditions are based on the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities.

In addition to the collective employment conditions, Utrecht University has a number of its own arrangements. These include agreements on professional development, leave arrangements, sports and cultural schemes, and you get discounts on software and other IT products. We also give you the opportunity to expand your terms of employment through the Employment Conditions Selection Model. This is how we encourage you to grow. For more information, please visit working at Utrecht University.

For informal questions (not for applications), please contact Prof. Dr Lucas J. Lourens at L.J.Lourens@uu.nl.

To apply, please use this link to go to the advertisement on UU’s own website and follow the guidelines mentioned there. We aim for a quick selection procedure after the deadline of December 19^th, 2025. Interviews will take place on January 28^th and 29^th, 2026. We aim to start the position by March 1^st, 2026, or preferably as soon as possible thereafter.

Note that international candidates that need a visa/work permit for the Netherlands require at least four months processing time after selection and acceptance. This will be arranged with help of the International Service Desk (ISD) of our university. Finding appropriate housing in or near Utrecht is your own responsibility and, unfortunately, we must warn that it is a tight market at the moment. In case of general questions about working and living in The Netherlands, please consult the Dutch Mobility Portal.

Online screening may be part of the selection. Commercial response to this ad is not appreciated.