Money well spent
Text Laura Hemstra Photos René Hendriks
Spotlight on the activities of the Professor Olaf Schuiling Fund
‘Without this funding, my research would have been impossible’ Wout Hanckman
The Professor Olaf Schuiling Fund, a Named Fund managed by the Utrecht University Fund, can provide financial backing for geochemistry research conducted at Utrecht University that cannot be financed from regular resources. The fund was named after Olaf Schuiling (1932), a Professor in Geochemistry and Experimental Petrology at Utrecht University. To this day, Schuiling — even after his retirement in 1997 — continues to carry out research into topics such as combating climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. In this edition of the ‘Money well spent’ feature, three students share their stories of how they have benefited from this fund.
they are, what processes caused this situation. Chemical processes tend to form part of the changes that take place on a planetary scale. It is precisely this sort of concrete research and the chemical make-up of our environment that I find fascinating. Without the Olaf Schuiling Fund, I would never have been able to go into this level of depth in my research. The idea for this research came from my supervisor Helen King, who did not have the time or the budget to do it herself. It’s more of an offshoot of her research. She told me about the Olaf Schuiling Fund. Thanks to this funding, I have more time for my research and I am able to use equipment that I would not have been able to afford otherwise.’
Fieke Mulders completed a Bachelor’s degree in Earth
Sciences and a Master’s degree in Earth, Life and Climate: ‘Three months ago, I started doing research at “Utrecht Castel”, the shared environmental laboratory at Utrecht Science Park which is a joint initiative of Deltares, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research and Utrecht University. I’m hoping to pursue a career in research — there’s no doubt in my mind that this is the road which I want to take. I decided to do a degree in Earth Sciences because I was keen to do research that had a clear impact on society. Earth Sciences is a very tangible discipline. ‘Whenever I walk When I walk around in around, I wonder the outdoors somewhere, why things look the I wonder why the landscape looks the way that it does — way that they do. why things are the way that
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August 2017
Karel As completed a Bachelor’s degree in Life Science & Technology at Delft University of Technology and is now doing a Master’s degree in Earth, Life and Climate at Utrecht University: ‘Before coming to Utrecht, I also did a Master’s in Biocatalysis in Delft. The main focus in that programme was on enzymes, and I mostly studied the geosphere and biosphere. I decided to do a second Master’s, because I wasn’t sure what to do with my degrees. Earth, Life & Climate covers a broader area than just enzymes; it’s essentially a combination of earth sciences and microbiology. Essentially, I want to look at the Earth as a comprehen sive system, and at how life and this planet influence each other. The Earth and mankind are under increasing pressure and are dependent on each other. The climate plays a key role in this process, but so does the depletion of the earth’s natural resources.