Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

edge research. Furthermore, the results of the Flood project havebeen published in the 2009 NIOZ annual report, which is read bypolicy-makers and those with a keen interest in maritime research.Worldly ambitions‘As a non-European citizen, the Marie Curie Fellowship wasan opportunity for me to share experience with leadingscientists and to achieve my research ambitions in aEuropean interdisciplinary landscape,’ says Dr Kim.Indeed, it was not only researchers in the Netherlands who gotto see her in action – she also collaborated with the NorwegianPolar Institute, too. The coalition between these two prestigiousinstitutes made possible a comparative study of two differentclimatic zones. Dr Kim braved the elements in a cruise expeditionaround Svalbard, which involved 10 days in the Arctic near theNorth Pole, working in diffi cult conditions.‘I have been on other expeditions and worked in tropicalenvironmental conditions; the limitations you face working inthe Arctic make carrying out research so much harder. Myresearch involved fi ltering water samples; this depended onthe right weather conditions being available, which meant thatI needed to be available to carry out my research 24 hours aday which was exhausting at times.‘For researchers interested in climate change the Arctic is ahotspot right now, therefore I was lucky to be involved in thisexpedition.’ The expedition received a lot of media attention.Dr Kim has now been hired as a postdoctoral Fellow and isbased in the Marine Organic Biogeochemistry department atthe Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. Her fellowshipsupervisor Professor Jaap Sinninghe Damsté has won a grantfrom the European Research Council to continue researchinto methods for reconstructing past climates using the fossilmolecules in sediments.Project acronymFloodsFull project titleFate of land-derived organic compounds in the coastal oceanType of grantIntra-European FellowshipsBudgetEUR 155 000Duration of project01-11-2006 - 31-10-2008Scientific disciplineEnvironmentHost institutionProfessor Sinninghe DamstéStichting Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut voor Onderzoek der ZeeLandsdiep 4Den BurgNL-1790 ABE-mail: damste@nioz.nl239