For example, some UvA Earth Sciences alumni work in:
- Academia for pursuing a PhD (e.g. University of Amsterdam)
- Consultancy and research firms (e.g. Royal Haskoning, Metabolic)
- Government agencies (e.g. the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Dutch water boards, Geological Survey)
- International environmental agencies (e.g. IUCN)
- Multinational corporations (e.g. Vattenfall)
- Educational organisations (e.g. high schools)
All former students of the Faculty of Science are alumni. Where do our alumni end up after graduating? And how do they put their academic knowledge into practice? Marleen shares more about her career path.
Jim Groot
CTO and co-founder of Green City Watch and Lecturer at the UvA.
'I was always interested in the latest satellites. These have mostly been used for the military, but I wanted to find ways to improve our way of living. Me and three other Earth Science Master’s students entered a competition initiated by Maxar (one of the largest commercial satellite imagery providers) and we won. We build a company out of it.'
Gillian Kopittke
Former PhD student at the UvA, now Soil Scientist at BP
'I wanted to make a survey of the effects of human activity on the Oldebroek heath in Gelderland province. To do that, I took water samples from a soil depth of 30 centimetres at regular intervals and compared them with samples that colleagues have taken over the past ten years.'
Niels Anders
Former PhD student, now postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University
'It's interesting that digital landscape analysis is developing at such a rapid pace. In ten or fifteen years we'll probably have mapped out the whole thing. That will give us an increasingly better idea of how our world actually works, enabling us to make better decisions about how to protect it.'
Bart Hoogendoorn
Soil consultant at Tauw
'My function is soil consultant. In this job I coordinate soil surveys which are executed by Tauw to measure the quality of the soil and groundwater. Due to human and industrial activities in the past the soil and groundwater is contaminated at a lot of locations.'
Cindy Teeven
GEO-IT at Geodan
'After I studied Earth Sciences, I never looked the same at the landscape anymore – consciously and subconsciously I always keep in mind the things I have learned. It makes holidays much more interesting and reminds me of the good time at the UvA!'