I am a master student of Earth Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, currently writing my thesis at the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) in collaboration with the Catholic University of Leuven. Some years ago, I decided that I wanted to go into research, however, what kind of research this would be was not very clear to me. In the first years of my bachelor, I planned to go into agroecology; this was partly motivated by an internship I did at the Leibniz Insititute für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF). However, after studying in Chile for one year and doing many geography related courses, my interests changed to more earth sciences related topics and I wanted to get a better understanding of natural processes and how living and non-living components of the planet interact.
This is why I decided to go to Amsterdam. My special interests lie in soils and their interactions with the atmosphere. Furthermore, I like to study their degradation and think about ways to restore them. My bachelor thesis with which I graduated as an environmental scientist, dealt with erosion on agricultural fields and the impacts of climate change on this process. Now, as a master student, I am looking at soils again but from a different perspective (see here).
Since I am fascinated by soils but had to find out that many people are not, I decided to start this blog to show how interesting soils can be. I want to share my experience as a master student at IBED, the scientific and not so scientific discoveries I make along the journey, and most important, share my thoughts and those of others on how soil carbon sequestration works.
This blog is meant for people both within and without the soil science community. So if you find anything you do not agree with or something you do not understand and want more information on, please do not hesitate to contact me.